


Like lions are made for cages

by theviolonist



Category: Original Work
Genre: Epic, Friendship, Gen, Multi, Quests, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 05:18:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 103,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolonist/pseuds/theviolonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'd always thought there'd only be one hero to his story: himself. In the end, it was more complicated than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**1.**

There is a persistent misconception going around: that that history and, in the grand scheme of things, life, is a string of actions. 

It isn't. Actions are what the spark is to the fire – necessary but, on its own, meaningless. What is fire made of? Wood. Oil. Stone, water, hell, you choose. _Reactions_ are what builds the edifice, what pervades and exists. People forget the declaration of war, buried under a pile of documents on an old oak desk, but they rarely forget the fight, the grime and the grit of it, or the consequences of its aftermath. History is built on the back of dominoes: a horse rearing back before a bayonet, a sea parting to let a man walk, a woman kneeling down to embrace her dead child. 

Let us examine a string of reactions: Andrew Reyes steps out in the stuffy New York night, head ducked, and doesn't return until morning. On a faraway island a woman wakes up shaking from a nightmare whose protagonists aren't yet dead. Kyle McHardy, the Governor of New York's first footman, hires new staff for the reception the Governor is holding tonight at 7:00 PM. Nomi Brulée looks out the window and sees an empire; an empire that her sister, who stands behind her with a hand on her hip, gifted to her. Tasha, Andrew's girlfriend, leaves his apartment with her toothbrush and the sad assurance that she won't return. At the back of Uriah Driscoll's eyelids, nerves connect and a bouquet of fireworks burst with happy fizzlings. A long time ago, a woman abandoned a child. A long time before that, a man was too proud to stop. 

They're all related. Don't worry, you'll understand.

*

Now, the thing about Andrew is, he's precise. He's precise about the way he talks, takes care not to mesh his consonants together, not to mutter, not to mumble; he's precise about where he goes and when, even though he's less precise about why. He's precise in the order in which he dresses in the morning, first his shirt and his tie, then his socks, then his pants and finally his belt, keeping the jacket for when he's already halfway out the door, in case it's light enough out that he doesn't need to put it on and can instead drape it over his arm. He's precise about things. He's precise about people. It's important. Even more than that, it's crucial, at least for what he does. 

For example, tonight: he knows exactly when the reception is starting – seven PM on the dot –, which is why he made the conversation with Tasha shorter than she intended it to be. She came to him for explanations, and instead of telling her a watered-down lie, which is something he does often, because it's comfortable without the guilt of betrayal, he told the truth. It didn't change much to the outcome. Andrew isn't one of those people who delude themselves into thinking that the truth is the answer to everything. 

So Tasha packed her bags. That's how he left her, actually, sitting on the bed with bangs slipping out of her hairtie, probably remembering the good moments they had together. He tries not to do that either. Useless sentimentalism doesn't get anybody anywhere. But she was a good girlfriend, a good person to have around – she didn't ask questions and she was soft in an ordinary, undemanding way which he seeks in woman and duly appreciated in her. It's over now, though.

He did love her. He loves people, sometimes, but it's a family illness: he loves them badly, without paying much attention to it, as though his love were going to take care of itself. As if it didn't need to be grown – as if it didn't need the patience of a real gardener, long-fingered hands kneading the ground to make it soft and easily penetrated by water. But he knows exactly when the reception is starting; he's there ten minutes after it starts, slipping in with the heavy flow of fashionally late guests, shiny and smirking in his tuxedo, perfectly at ease amongst the smarmy businessmen with their bow-ties and their double fingers of whiskey. He's always on time, and tonight it's because he's following someone else's schedule, borrowing a life as he so often does. Maybe that's why Tasha left. Maybe she grew tired of trying to break through his juxtaposed skins. 

But tonight isn't about him, despite the appearances. This night has its own rhythmic heartbeat and it's that machine which he has to follow, atune himself to its subtle hiccups. It's fine, though, he's used to it, and he does it well. He makes conversation as though he'd been born there in this room, which he was, in a way – born in this Italian suit with a taste for the little crab toasts going around. The Governor walks towards him with a smile, light reflecting on the white lily pinned to his lapel; he's the guest in a giant's home, disguised as one of his peers. He's Jack, keeping his bean up his sleeve to play it later. 

"Hello, Governor. What a fantastic party, may I just say." The hand is friendly and open, a stranger's palm. Could he be more of a stranger, actually? He prides himself on that perfect anonymity. The minute he turns away, he knows his face will be forgotten. Blandness only ever works to his advantage. 

"Good night, Mister..." The voice rises and tilts, interrogative, but he doesn't answer. He has his own path to draw. His plans never derail, because they are constructed like clockwork – with the precision of a watchmaker, so much that the slowing down of one little cog is enough to throw the whole thing. Though it never does. He is an expert artisan.

He smiles warmly. "What a fantastic job you did on the bridge, by the way. On behalf of this whole city, I cannot thank you enough."

Trenton smiles back, uninterested. His gaze is already distracted; deprived of a name to hold his attention, it drifts away, and his greedy eyes catch on a rush of pearls on the Russian ambassador's chest. They make asinine conversation for a few more seconds, upon which – Andrew doesn't have to check his watch to know what exact time it is – Trenton's phone rings and he moves away, taking a few steps backwards. "If you would excuse me for just a second – " His eyes flit and bounce on a variety of objects, his tie, the pearls, his cellphone. 

"But of course," he says, gracious as only a gentleman can be, or someone who is a gentleman for the night. He slinks away. He's gotten good at it – when he was young it was harder. He tried too much; he wanted to stay.

He catches a flute of champagne on a passing tray, blinking a flashing smile at the waitress; compelled, she smiles back, then turns her head away and continues on her path. He likes to imagine what's going in her mind right now: she's replaying the last few seconds in her mind, trying to recompose the face she only glanced at for a few seconds, the expression on his face. Then someone else takes a flute from her tray and it doesn't matter who they are, what they look like, if they smile at her or not; she's distracted. He sees her blinking once, twice, probably still trying to remember him, not out of interest but rather reflex. It doesn't work and she shakes her head, already giving up. One of the other waitresses murmurs something under her breath which catches her attention. And – there. He's gone, wiped from her mind – at the end of the night she won't be able to tell she even saw him. Truly amazing, how the human brain works. 

He downs the champagne in one gulp and sets the flute on the mantelpiece, then slips into the bathroom. The work there is quick too: he takes a glances at himself in the mirror, smooths his hair on his skull, takes his bag from where it was hidden under one of the tiles, then disappears into the toilet. When he comes out he's another man, no longer clad in the appropriate tuxedo and bowtie with some accessories smattered here and there, an opulent thumb ring, a tie-clip; now he looks everything like the man he becomes more often than not, a man that will leave by the service door, entirely unnoticed. He's wearing black from head to toe. The waitress wouldn't give him a second glance. 

The service door swings; he smiles when the fresh air hits his face, as if to say, _welcome, this is yours_. He isn't nervous. He used to be, at first, but time cured him of that like it did the rest, the guilt and the clinging sadness. He glances down at his watch. Everything is going well. The plan will proceed smoothly. He puts his gloves on, finger by finger, enjoying the slide of leather against skin. When he takes a look around him the garden is almost preternaturally still, the small lamps glowing like wildfires in the darkness. His eyes roam over the expanse of the fountain, the stone benches, the row of cypresses. He feels like he knows it all by heart; his plans are always painstakingly precise, correct to the millimeter. 

He's ready when Trenton steps out, phone glued to his ear. He can't hear the conversation, but he doesn't need to to know what they're saying. He follows him silently, his steps measured. Trenton stops near the fountain. The gurgling of the water covers some of his words. He sounds faintly alarmed, as if he knew the future; as if he knew, through some trick of his fate, what the next few minutes would hold. But he doesn't.

Andrew shifts minutely, adjusting his grip. The darkness will shield him for a few more moments, until Trenton hangs up. His ring gleams in the moonlight when he does, almost obscene. Andrew steps out of the shadow. He's done this countless times. 

He smiles, more at himself than anything else. "Hello, Governor."

The expression on Trenton's face when he sees him is pleasantly familiar: not quite recognition, but the beginning of a suspicion, mixed in with surprise and fear. He opens his mouth to ask something, but the question dies on his lips: the syringe sinks in the bulging vein in his throat and he's on the ground before he can say a word. 

Andrew taps his nail against the side of the syringe, cleaning the tip of blood, then sheathes it back into its case. "Good night, Governor."

He always did love his theatrics. His mother used to say it was so hard, when he was a kid, and to this day he never understood. It isn't hard. He doesn't _enjoy_ it, really – who would? - but there's a certain thrill to it, the planning, the chase. Humans are predator, when it comes down to it; _homo homini lupus_ and all that. At least he chooses the right preys. It makes it easier, he won't lie: what he's doing is _right_ , is bigger than him. In the end he's only helping destiny along, clearing the path for what's bound to come.

Now is not the time to get philosophical, though, as much as he could stay there for an hour flexing his fingers to get the sparks coursing through the whole of his body. This part is the part he can't mess up. He kneels next to the body, throwing a cursory glance behind him to check a stroll under the moonlight hasn't suddenly piqued someone's fancy. But he made sure to lock all the doors that access this part of the garden and by now everyone must be drunk enough that they won't bother asking the hostess – who's probably getting busy in the pantry with the new gardener anyway, he has his sources – and will just search for another exit. They should be good for at least another hour; he'll be long gone by then. 

A quick pulse check verifies that Trenton is unconscious. Andrew shoulders off his bag and takes out his knife. He had it specially made when he started getting, well, professional, and even he will say that it's a beauty. Stainless steel, could cut a rock in two, with a gorgeously smooth handle that just sits in the hand like it's meant to be there. He crouches over the body, knees grazing the ground, then leans back, his fingers closed on the handle. The knife is a bolt of lightning in the half-darkness. Three strikes, just like he planned: once in the gut, once in the chest, once in the throat. Blood splashes on his gloves, and he frowns, but doesn't falter. The next hits go to the same spots, only a little off-center, so that the assault will look disorganized. He has no doubt that they will come to suspect him anyway, but he prefers to stick with his old methods, and he can't deny that it gives him a certain guilt-free satisfaction to stab a man while pretending to be another one. 

By the time he's finished his work only the lower half of Trenton's body and his face have been spared: his torso is covered by long lacerations, the skin showing through the torn, blood-soaked cloth. Shame – it was a good tuxedo. Andrew slits the throat from end to end, digging the blade deep enough that blood starts gushing out of the severed carotid in a thick and lazy flow. The anesthetic contains a blood-coagulating agent; he prefers to get as little blood on himself as he can in case the need arises to make a precarious escape. Cutting, he's careful to avoid the right collarbone, but the rest is fair game. Specks of blood slowly come to cover the back of his hand, some of it staining the end of his sleeve. Andrew has an annoyed thought for all the washing up he's going to have to do. Blood-coagulating agent or not, he never did quite learn to anticipate how much he's going to get on himself. 

The blade bites through Trenton's breast pocket and the flower breaks apart in a pool of blood. Andrew takes it and sets it on the ground, but the white petals are already covered with thick, pervading red. Andrew tears the cloth of Trenton's jacket apart to get a better access to the chest; he'll need it. It's like open-heart surgery, he used to tell himself at first, except you don't close them up afterwards. He lets go of the blade and starts using his fingers to get to the heart, digging through the flesh like a treasure hunter. It's not the easiest thing to do, but when you've got some training you learn which arteries to cut if you don't want the whole thing bursting in your hands. It's still beating a little, which irritates him – it's un _na_ tural – so he just tears it out. Better safe than sorry. 

He glances down at his watch. Half an hour. He didn't think he'd been going so slow; he needs to stop taking his time now. He rises, hands on his knees, and gets the blade back from where he set it on Trenton's stomach. He walks around the body to get to the head. And this... isn't the fun part. Cutting through bone is always a drag. Thankfully though, he brought some old-school tools with him, and with his custom-made silent miniature saw and other helpful paraphernalia he gets to the brain without too much trouble, after which getting the chip is like sticking your fingers in jello, and that has never been fun for anyone, but there are some things you just have to do. He gets a little plastic pouch from his pocket and slips the chip in it, then tucks it safely back into the bag. Almost done. 

Only one thing left to do. He reaches for the collarbone, groping a little. It's gotten darker, the only light the distant glow of the house and the pale moon, but he doesn't dare use his flashlight for fear someone will notice him. He made more of a mess than he intended, there are guts where there really shouldn't be, and he shouldn't have gotten carried away with the heart. It just looks messy, sitting there on the ground next to the flower – there's no way to say it otherwise. He clears the area just below the collarbone, pushing the blood-stiff collar aside, only to discover that Trenton _inked_ his mark. Andrew snorts. What some people do to be fashionable. But he's got a job to do, so he grabs his knife again, hopefully for the last time today, and starts carefully cutting the skin around the mark. It's a little elastic, but there's not much blood up there anymore so at least it's not slippery. He'll take it.

Another little plastic pouch, the mark – and well, the skin it's on – goes into it, and he's ready to be off. He's packing all his tools back into his bag when Trenton's phone starts ringing. He wills himself to ignore it, but the truth is he's never been awfully patient and the sound starts grating on his nerves after ten seconds. Besides, it could very well attract someone, and he really doesn't need that. On the other hand, if he shuts it off someone could notice that something's wrong, not to mention that he'll probably get blood all over the phone. Hell, he should just leave and be over with it. Except –

Damn it. He grabs the phone on the ground, just to check who's calling, in the off case it's a name he recognizes and could warn him to run far, far away. He hits mute without thinking, but what is his surprise to find out that he does indeed know the name that's blinking on the screen. He won't run away, though. That name requires another kind of running – towards it. He zips his bag closed moodily. Oh, how he hates it when his plans don't go as planned. That being said, he's not going to pass on the opportunity to kill two birds with the same, stainless-steel stone. He grabs his bag, and just as a key turns in the lock of the backdoor, a musical voice filtering out with the light, disappears smoothly into the shadows. To be His hand indeed. 

*

There's only one rule to being a drug dealer: don't use. It's a really simple rule that corresponds to a mechanism that's just as simple, even though the number of people who disregard it would tend to indicate the contrary; the rule being, if you use, you're a slave to the drug, and you can't be a slave when you're supposed to be the master. 

Uriah would say that the simplistic feel of this theory doesn't sit right with him, and normally it wouldn't, but in this case it really is a pristine, crystal-clear situation. That being said, anyone with a little imagination can figure out that there are other ways to get wasted that don't involve pills or intravenous, even though nothing quite replaces the ecstasy (pun intended) one gets from the goodies he makes it his job to provide. 

Uriah's poison of choice, after women, is alcohol. Yes, it's cliché, it's tawdry, it's unoriginal – but all that's for a reason and the fact is, well, it works. Uriah isn't one of those people who drink alone to chase the pain away, though, and numbing himself to death doesn't interest him; he only drinks in the soft hazes of underground clubs, when the _chiaroscuro_ sweeps him in and there's no way to differentiate the people in the crowd other than by their touch and the way their hips move to the pounding, heady beat.

The club is nowhere near the city center – Uriah prefers to be as inconspicuous as possible – and yet it seems to be the city's big heart, pumping blood faster than people can snort up their various drugs. Even though his current occupation as a 'business owner' keeps him from the delights of pressing his nose to the fake marble of brightly-lit bathrooms, it wasn't always this way. But even when he used he was good at it: he quickly mastered the tenuous consciousness that comes with drugs and taking them, had control, more than anyone he knows, because he knew how to pull himself from the edge and then go back to dangle from it again. This is the reason he thinks he's good at sex, and no one's ever told him otherwise. But this is good too – tamer, but good. He's dancing, alcohol warming the inside of his veins; a nice buzz is building under his skin, gentle as a simmer. There's someone at his right, left, behind him, in front of him. He's surrounded, overwhelmed, encompassed; there's nothing to distinguish him the fist-pumping, head-lolling anonymous sweating glitter and drug-induced tears around him, and it feels good, it's what he likes. It's what he lives for.

The neon lights blind him but don't swallow him when he gazes up, his eyes scraping the surface of a few bodies and passing them, not interested enough. This is a swankier club than he's used to, a new hunting ground for his new brand of merchandise, and he revels in the knowledge that he doesn't belong amidst the exquisitely tailored suits and two thousand dollar shoes. Unlike them, he won't go back tonight and sleep in four-hundred thread-count sheets with a bottle of Laurent-Perrier Grand Siècle lying open beside him like a perfectly curvy but slightly disappointing girlfriend. He has a different destiny. 

Someone brushes past him; the contact lights him up like a match. He doesn't really control the jerks of his body anymore but he knows what he's doing, always – it's a paradox until it isn't anymore. The man is tall and vulgar and his suits hangs badly on his frame. Uriah holds back the jibe, his hand twitches against the man's side because they're all stuck together in this immense fishbowl of a dance-floor. 

"Sorry," Uriah says at the same time as the man groans, "Apologize."

All said and done, now, Uriah thinks, but of course it isn't – the man grabs the neck of his T-shirt and it takes Uriah less than a half-second to realize that he's not only pissed but probably high on something, Uriah could probably guess what if he had the time and the will. His face is slightly ruddy, but it doesn't take long for Uriah to notice that he's a Mechanic. It's not a surprise, not exactly; most people in this part of town here, they own most of the businesses and the pricey condos in the area. Time stills, and for a second Uriah thinks he might let it go, drop Uriah and walk away, simple as that; but it's all too easily to recompose, bad drugs that didn't quite do the trick and then some little shit grazed his side and – here we go. The fist, sloppy but powerful, hits him at the base of his jaw. Uriah almost sighs as he clambers backwards. Knuckles hitting flesh crushing bone and the pounding, pounding music. That's style. That's what life is about. 

It all goes very fast after that. Uriah details the Mechanic as they trade punches and the crowd ebbs around them, giving them room to hassle, which Uriah wishes they wouldn't do because it also gives room for the panic to slip in and that's never good, is it? But he's in the action, now, he can't back down, so he uses all his tricks, leg in the shin as he twirls on the ground and the man lurches drunkenly, no finesse but all the force of a standard American tank. Shit. The wheels and cogs of it will win, now; the fallacy of pretending.

Maybe those drugs were even worse than he thought, Uriah thinks as his mind starts to clear somewhat painfully. The fascination Mechanics have for drugs and booze has always intrigued him. When he still used, he'd had to develop an almost unnatural resistance to be able to pretend along with them, because they can ingest humongous amounts of anything before feeling the slightest effect, which is the chief reason why Uriah is here tonight with his new merchandise – something that could know a horse down but will only galvanize them, for better and probably for worse. He comes out of his daze when a knee collides with his stomach. He spits blood in a pathetic gurgle. The splatter on the ground gets his attention, he thinks about his teeth, one or two probably unsettled, waits for the _coup de grâce_. He squeezes his eyes shut. Despite the appearances, he isn't actually a masochist.

When it doesn't come, he looks up. The Mechanic is wiping his mouth with his sleeve, his grin twisted. Uriah feels a pang of pride until a foot planted firmly in his chest throws him back on the ground. 

"Now," says the Mechanic, his eyes flashing with something ugly, "I can quick your ass until you don't remember your name, and no one," he looks around him as though to make sure, smirks, "will do anything about it." Uriah blinks; he knows it's true. The sentence for attacking a Mechanic is daunting enough to quash anyone's Samaritan instincts, "or," he manages his suspense, kicking Uriah in the side for good measure, "you could supply me."

Uriah opens his eyes, hauls himself up on his elbows despite the pain. Everyone's eyes are still fixed on him, a few of them fluorescent with make-up in the thick, odorant darkness. They're filled to the brim with the blind curiosity of addicts, incapable of doing anything or even of thinking straight, this curiosity that is simple hunger for something to happen, the same thrill that pushes to consumption. It takes a few seconds for Uriah's head to get straight again, and only then does the plot add up in his mind: how the Mechanic knows who he is, what he does. His hand comes up to his neck out of habit, covers the tattoo with a sweaty palm. It's from another time, even though people don't know that; but it comes in handy more often than not.

"Sure, why not," Uriah says with a loose shrug and a smirk that makes his split lip sting. "What do you want?" 

The man looms over him, his lapels open on his chest, the underside a rosy sort of purple. It's pretty, almost makes up for his sneer and his palpable hostility. His shirt is open, too, and the mark – no, he's definitely an asshole. Who inks their mark, seriously? 

"I need the new one," he says, his eyes jumping around him, which confirms Uriah's theory that he hasn't been able to find anything that quite does the trick. "H54. They told me you had it." Uriah's head snaps up, he's surprised. The product is new, not many people know about it yet, and those who do rarely know how to get it and where to get it from. Maybe this wasn't so accidental after all.

Uriah kneels and proceeds to stand up, dusting his pants with open palms that he wipes on his thighs. The crowd moves swiftly, an asymmetrical wave, recedes for a second before crowding him again, indifferently, barely leaving enough room for him and the Mechanic to continue their exchange. Uriah likes that about crowds, how flighty they are, almost volatile.

"How much do you have?" he asks, slipping back into a blank kind of mood, the adrenalin that had attacked his veins bleeding out of him silently and disappearing into the multicolored darkness. Business as usual. 

The Mechanic snarls; his bottom lip curls upwards, makes him ugly again. Uriah has half a mind to tell him doing that won't make more successful with women, or with Uriah for that matter, but he's already gotten enough trouble for one night. "I want it for free."

Surprise kickstarts his brain again and Uriah pulls his hand in front of his stomach, defensive. "I can't do that," he says, trying to sound apologetic even though he isn't. If he starts giving drugs away for free, who's to say what's gonna happen? He can't exactly come back to his supplier empty-handed, and this kind of deal never ends well. Besides, H54 is fucking expensive.

In a flash the Mechanic is looming over him again, his breath stinking of alcohol. His hand closes over Uriah's throat and Uriah gulps painfully against his sweaty palm. This is not going in the direction he'd hoped. Shit. "Do you really have that short a memory?" the Mechanic asks, looking like he's losing his patience. 

"Look, man," Uriah says, fully awake now, "I can give a discount for, you know, being so charming," the Mechanic loosens his grip and Uriah coughs, massages his throat with one hand, grimacing, "but I can't give it to you for free. I'm sure you understand, it's in the interest of my business, you know business, right?" He fingers the Mechanic's lapel, brushing the raw-flesh pink between his fingers. 

That, as it turns out, is not a good move. The Mechanic is surprisingly beefy for one of his sort (they tend to be more the slender and powerful type, usually), and strong as they all are, no matter the build: his open hands on Uriah's chest project him backwards, and he crashes against the wall with a sick sound of mistreated bone. The crowd opens again, with a quiet buzz, as thought in awe.

Uriah opens his mouth – there is always something more to say, something that will make them change their minds, it's usually how situations like this work out for him – but he can't get a syllable out before the Mechanic's fist collides with his jaw again, and his face hits the ground, he breathes in someone's dust and glitter, the strong, sickly scent of alcohol and sweat. The music beats in his pounding brain and heart. He spits a little blood. He's never been a good fighter; in truth, he's more the talkative sort, the one that gets away with everything thanks to his charm and ingenuous wit. 

Not this time, though. He rolls on his belly to avoid the collision as the fist roams back into its arch, and the unexpected absence of flesh and bone wrecks the Mechanic's balance. Uriah sees, from the corner of his eye, that the man is alert, faster now that the alcohol is starting to wear off from his system. There's only one way Uriah will win this at this point, and even it is uncertain – if he uses ruse, if he attacks before the other expects it, if he's what he is at his best, tricky and slippery between his opponent's fingers. 

But the certainty thrums in his brain even as he stands up and ducks another hit, emerges from under the taut arm, strikes once at the small of the Mechanic's back: _this won't end well_. He can't even see the crowd anymore, too caught in the action, the swoosh of air as they slide and cut through it, trying to anticipate each other's movements, but he imagines they might he wavering on the edges of the fight, transfixed, too substance-addled to do anything useful like call the cops. Even if they did, Uriah wouldn't be in a much better position, anyway. He strikes another time, on the Mechanic's arm, but the blow is nothing, doesn't have a quarter of his assailant’s strength. Uriah regrets leaving his gun home. He usually takes it everywhere with it, but of course, he thought –

The Mechanic's forearm slaps on his neck, it hurts like hell, a burning, spreading pain that makes him waver on his feet, hesitate, cough. Maybe he should just give in to it and let himself get beaten up once and for all. But the Mechanic will take the drugs, and stolen drugs never make for happy people, much less suppliers. Another slip-up is exactly what Uriah doesn't need right now. He tries for a sneaky blow, makes a fist and goes for the temple. He's startled when it works – the Mechanic staggers backwards as though in slow-motion, his limbs heavy and still suit-clad, perspiration darkening his armpits. Uriah watches, morbidly fascinated, as his head hits the corner of the bar Uriah hadn't even noticed they'd reached and a string of dark blood spills. 

"Shit," Uriah says – the sound is drowned in the commotion, doesn't even ring in his own ears. 

He hesitates for a second, doesn't know whether to kneel and check if the Mechanic isn't dead, probably to his own disadvantage, or simply to flee. Now everyone is looking at him with big cow eyes, judgment starting to seep through the blankness. Did he kill a man, there, in the middle of their chosen entertainment space? Someone bursts in a belated shriek, that pierces the silence and sets the hysteria in motion. Uriah doesn't move. His hands flap back down against his thighs. He can't be dead. Mechanics don't die that easily. Right? 

He doesn't move, until he _has_ to move, it's the only option. The police doesn't usually patrol around those areas, which is one of the key reasons why Uriah conducts his business there, but all these people have phones with cameras and someone's bound to take a photograph and call 911, if they already haven't. Though calling 911 would be kind of useless, wouldn't it? Uriah isn't exactly used to corpses, but he knows how to tell when people are dead, call it a gift. Besides, that guy was a Mechanic: if it hadn't killed him on the spot, that blow wouldn't have been enough to knock him out, barely to make him disorientated for a few minutes – crucial in a fight, but still. This is a disaster.

He kneels briefly and checks the Mechanic's pulse, purely to assuage his conscience, but he was right and he stands up as quickly as he crouched, suddenly alert. Surprisingly, the crowd lets him go through them without giving him grief – either they're all too stoned (there's some kind of sick pride to be taken in that) or because they unconsciously recognize him as one of their own. They're mostly Mechanics, it's not about that; but even with the strobe lights and erratic dancing the people here don't like scuffle, and it's pretty obvious that guy started it, even from their perspective. At least that's what Uriah guesses. 

He's busy trying to make an exit towards the backdoor when a voice rings over the humdrum of the crowd, powerful and clear, cutting through the chaos. "Ladies and gentlemen," it says calmly, "please don't panic. We'll take care of this."

Against all instinct of self-preservation – he's never been all that good at those, anyway – Uriah cranes his neck to see over the crowd. For all his talk of "we", the voice belongs to one guy, alone. He's busy loading the corpse on a sort of stretcher, his back to Uriah, though even from this distance Uriah can see he isn't dressed in either medical or police gear; around him a hum of half-shouted conversation is coming from the crowd, people share looks, probably all assuming that one of them called the authorities and feeling sort of cheated now that someone's intruded on their sanctuary. Yeah, Uriah knows them pretty well. The music still hasn't stopped pounding. 

"There's nothing to see," the voice says again. "Please scatter. Thank you." And he repeats, not sounding one bit nervous or overwhelmed, one man towered over by a crowd that numbers in the hundreds: "Please scatter."

Eventually they do as he asks, returning to their nightly activities, probably left only with an itch at the back of their brain that'll make them tell their roommates about that strange thing that happened at the club tonight, with that guy – 

Speaking of which, Uriah's actually in deep shit. He doesn't believe in luck, and at this point it's pretty retty much guaranteed he's going to have to become a fugitive now, which _sucks_ , because he never intended to kill that jackass in the first place. _He came at me, what was I supposed to do?_ the self-righteous part of his brain protests, but the other part, the part that's actually scared out of its fucking wits, retorts, _I don't know, something else than killing him?_ which pretty much makes the point moot. 

Still, for some reason, he can't bring himself to leave. It's probably stupid, but that guy in there looked a lot like a fraud, and Uriah's seen enough of those to recognize them when they come along. How did he even get here so fast? It makes no sense for him to be alone and without uniform. But why is he here, what does he want with that body? Uriah killed the guy, the least he can do is make sure his corpse doesn't get kidnapped by a necrophiliac freak – right? And he's actually a little intrigued. Besides, his life as he knows it is pretty much over, so he can afford to find out that one little thing before he tries to get into a plane and out of this fucking city. God, and he'd gotten such a nice apartment. (This time he ignores the other voice, which reminds him he's always been good at sticking his nose where it doesn't belong and getting himself in atrocious trouble for it – _do you remember the time with_ – ; it's not like it's helping.)

He gets on his toes, trying to see if the guy's leaving and to check if he has a mark – if he does, Uriah promises himself, he is _out of here_ : they're going to want his head after that, and they're not exactly the most pleasant people to deal with. But he's never been good at following his own advice, and the guy is pushing the stretcher towards the back entrance. It's definitely strange, though he could have parked the ambulance back there. 

It's funny how those things happen, really. There's an almost sacred feel to those moments, balanced between two crucial decisions, that determine the course of an entire life. They're torn between different instincts, human – or, well, universal really – flaws: hubris, curiosity, lust. And Uriah thinks, _if I just_ – but he doesn’t, of course he doesn't. Instead he leaps back into the crowd, head down, rubbing companionably against the bodies twisting on the dance-floor; sweat collects almost immediately on his brow, he feels like it might be alright, after all, he just might get out of this one unscathed, it's just a bout of healthy curiosity, really, he – 

But then he steps out of the door, pushing the metal with both palms, and the heat pours on him, stifling. The air is fraught with sickeningly odorous perfume and distant garbage fumes. It makes Uriah dizzy, and he has to lean against the humid wall for a minute to catch his breath. He's not so sure about what he's doing all of a sudden, but it's too late to go back. Teeth grinding, he engages in the narrow passage leading to what he assumes is a backyard – a lot of bars in this area have those, they use them for the more shady deals that are guaranteed to take place there so the bathrooms don't get too cramped. Uriah knows better than to hazard back there, usually: he almost never conducts his affairs there, instead has perfected the tactic of the hand-to-hand, isn't even distracted by the stroboscopic lights anymore. 

He fumbles, the only light coming from the windows of the buildings overhead and the glowing, shiny moon. If Uriah were less used to this kind of setting, he would probably be mildly scared. As it is, he trudges forward, until he's greeted by the back of the man from the club. He isn't aware of him yet, and Uriah can't see what he's doing but can see it's him – same strangely rigid stance combined with fluid movements, the light black sweater...

He takes a step forward, catching his breath, and leans in, hoping not to startle him – 

But within seconds his arm is being twisted behind his back and there's a gun pressed to his skull, the man's jaw clenched where it's flush against Uriah's temple. "What are you doing here?" he growls. 

Uriah takes a breath, willing his hammering heart to get over the surprise. He's been in this situation before. Countless times, actually. There's no need to panic. "I don't want you any harm," he starts, but the word catches in his throat when he catches sight of the stretcher. The Mechanic's forehead has been carefully cut into, blood flowing cleanly into a little bag. It's suddenly very, painfully clear that a) that guy is a psychopath who was attempting to _cut into the Mechanic's skull_ and b) following his instincts is _always_ a bad idea. You'd think he'd have learned that by now. 

"I'm not the one who needs to worry about _harm_ right now," the man says, making Uriah's point that much more valid. From the corner of his eye, Uriah can see his finger getting firmer on the trigger. 

"Wow," he says hurriedly. His brain is whirring, trying to find some way to talk the stranger/impostor/whoever he is into not blowing his brains out. "Okay, no need to be extreme here. It was just healthy curiosity, honest. I have no interest in how you're planning to cut that guy up. He was a jerk, anyway."

Oh, if only he could keep his mouth shut. (Also, he doesn't actually think the jerk deserves to be cut into just because he was a jerk, for the record.)

"Give me one reason," says the man, sounding frighteningly self-controlled, "why I shouldn't kill you."

"It's morally reprehensible?"

The man gives a sound of annoyance, and Uriah is getting to understand that annoyance in this case probably means premature death, so he starts talking again, faster, "I mean, why do you want this guy? I could –" The metal of the gun will probably leave a trace in the skin of his temple if the guy presses any harder. "I killed him," Uriah blurts out. So much for cool and poise, then. 

But it actually gives the man pause, which is a very, very good thing. He lets go of his hold of Uriah's arm but doesn't lower his gun. "Walk," he says instead.

Uriah follows the direction the man pushes him into and ends up standing at the end of the backyard, his back pressed against the wall. Now that the man's standing in front of him, Uriah's eyes flick over his traits, trying to guess something that could be useful for blackmail. But he looks pretty standard: Caucasian, blond, with brown eyes, he's pretty much the definition of average. He doesn't have any tattoos or gang marks, which is a good sign. Then again, he could be a particularly deranged serial killer, so really it's a toss-up.

"Tell me what you know," he says. 

Uriah rolls his eyes. "Sure, nice to meet you too." Yep, he feels much more comfortable now that he's not in immediate danger of having his head blown off. Though maybe he should hold it on the sarcasm, if the way the man's eyes narrow is any indication. He raises the gun again, wordlessly. 

"Okay, okay," Uriah says, holding his hands up. "Er, I bumped into him, he was drunk, he knocked me down. We fought, he... fell. On his head." He leaves out the part where the Mechanic wanted his drugs, because that's a minor detail, and besides, it's not like anyone needs to know. Uriah has a business to protect. ….well, he did. Now, not so much. 

"So you didn't intend to kill him?"

"What? No, dude, no!" Which is true: he doesn't kill people. Help them get grievously addled to dangerous substances, yes, but he never actually does the honors. "Seriously. Besides, if I did want to kill him, I'm not sure a crowded club would have been my first choice of location to do it."

That actually brings something like the inkling of a smile to the man's lips. It might be the light, though. "I've learned to never over-estimate the human race," he says cooly. "Stupidity is not a rare trait, quite the contrary."

"Speak for yourself," Uriah says, mildly offended. "As for human, I don't know about that. Big fellow over there," nope, he's not going to look, blood is _not_ his favorite liquid, by far, "was pretty stupid in his own special cupcake way."

The man's cool eyes rest on Uriah's face for a second, as though he were trying to determine if he's is just pretending to be the big-mouthed mess he is. No luck there, Uriah thinks. 

"Okay," he says eventually. "So you were not trying to kill him. Unfortunate for you. Did you have any sort of conversation? Did he tell you anything?"

"No," Uriah lies smoothly. "We got down to business directly, if you know what I mean."

Now it's the man's turn to roll his eyes. "I know how to detect a lie, so think twice before you give me false information, is that clear? Now, did he say anything to you before you... fought?"

"That I was rude and I ought to apologize. A few insults. Sweet talk, that kind of stuff."

… and there's the gun again. Uriah swallows. "No, no, I swear. He didn't say anything."

"He didn't mention something about the queen?" the man asks, and okay, that totally came out of left field. 

"The what now?"

"You heard me."

Uriah twists a little in his grip, to no amount. "If he'd said anything about the queen, I think I'd have remembered."

The man quickly sizes him up, as though trying to decide if he's trustworthy, but after a few tantalizing, agonizing seconds, his grip starts softening gradually. "Good," he says shortly. "Did he have anyone with him?"

Uriah actually has to think for this one. He remembers people in the darkness behind the Mechanic, at first, when they started fighting, but it was dark and Uriah was a little drunk too, and it's not like he paid particularly close attention. Though if he focuses hard enough – 

"Did he?" The hand tightens again.

"I'm thinking," Uriah says as curtly as he can. "There were two people with him. A... woman, a Mechanic I think, her hair was.... mid-thigh, blond I think... maybe with those silver streaks? Maybe not. And a guy. His mark was inked over too. Black, I didn't see him very well. He was wearing a suit."

There's a beat of silence. "You have a pretty good memory," the man says eventually, sounding grudgingly impressed. "Too bad I have to kill you."

They can say what they want – nothing will wake you up more efficiently than a death threat. "Wow, what? No way." The man throws him a glance, looking genuinely intrigued, like he doesn't get to hear the defense often, and yeah, that's sick. "Bad move. Killing me, I mean. I can help you."

The man raises an eyebrow, now definitely amused. "And how do you plan to do that?"

"Everybody needs something," Uriah says matter-of-factly. "I have – drugs, I -"

The man tilts his head. "I don't," he says, and points his gun at Uriah's head. 

_This isn't how I wanted to die_ , Uriah thinks in the second before he presses the trigger, _I wanted to go with glory, but doesn't everyone? No, a gang war would have been good, with a car chase, or even an old quiet death when I'm –_

And then a phone rings. 

Uriah risks opening an eye. He's not dead. He's not dead? Why isn't he dead? He should be dead. 

When he risks a glance at the man, he's turned his back. He's still pointing his gun at Uriah, his arm stretched taut behind him. Uriah could try to make a run for it, but judging by the way he spotted him before, there isn't a big chance that he'll actually make it out of there alive. On the other hand, it's not like the man is planning to spare him. So his choices are... death or death. Great. 

He looks over again. The man is digging into the Mechanic's pocket, completely oblivious to Uriah's dilemma. He retrieves the phone and shuts it off, before starting to search through it, one eye still trained on Uriah. When Uriah tentatively tries to move a hand, he says calmly, not looking away from the phone, "Move and you die."

Uriah gulps. "Okay."

Needless to mention, the situation is making him a teeny bit nervous. If he's going to die, he'd like to actually get on with it, if that's not too much to ask. Trying to remember if he actually did anything valuable with his life is not getting him good results. Maybe he should have volunteered for a humanitarian association. And he only had sex with Thema once, why is that? And what about cats? He could've rescued cats. He could have given assistance to the helpless animals of the world and he didn't. He's a wretched man. Oh no, and the environment. He never gave half a thought to the environment. There are almost no forests left in South America. He's probably going to hell now, he is and it's gonna be all his fault because he – 

"Stop thinking," the man says coldly. "You're distracting me."

Uriah has the good sense to be offended by that. "Oh, I'm sorry," he snaps, "am I distracting you while I _wait to die_?"

The man finally looks up at him. Uriah can see in his eyes that he's trying to decide if he's going to kill him or not, which is not only very stressful but also mildly terrifying. He's going to talk, and probably say something stupid like "Can you not do that?" which would be a really terrible idea since, as previously stated, there is a gun involved, when – 

"We need to get out of here," the man says. 

"I'm sorry, _we_?"

The man assesses him with a cold glance. "The way I see it, you have three options. You can either stay and try to run away on your own, which will take you exactly nowhere and will end up with you getting taken by the cops and probably executed, I can shoot you in the head right now, or you can come with me. It's a one-time offer."

Uriah swallows. "Put like that..." he says feebly. 

"Let's go," the man says.

Before Uriah can say anything, he gets a small saw out of his bag, slaps on a pair of gloves and turns the saw on, before sawing cleanly through the Mechanic's forehead. Uriah's shriek of terror is muffled by the man's glove just in time. 

"Oh my God," Uriah breathes out when the man finally releases him. "Oh my God, you're actually insane."

The mean bends over the body, blood splattering his shirt. He doesn't have glasses, though Uriah's starting to think he has the whole serial killer starter in his backpack, so he's squinting, blood flicking at his eyes and cheeks. Eventually he turns the saw off and reaches into the man's brain, squinting even harder until he retrieves a little thing. It looks like... it looks like a grain of sand dripping with blood, but from what Uriah knows about Mechanic anatomy, he's going to assume it's a chip. The man looks at it for a second. His face splits into a small grin, and he slips the chip into a plastic bag that he takes from his bag. Yep. Definitely a starter kit. The man glances forlornly at the Mechanic's mark, for a reason Uriah would much rather not dwell upon; then he straightens up and cracks his wrists. 

"Let's go," he says shortly, and he starts running ahead.

Uriah didn't actually know there were that many streets behind the club. It's like a narrow, badly-lit maze: hundreds of meters of tortuous, sometimes doubtfully cobbled roads. Uriah supposes they were installed after the Awakening, but he never noticed them. The man runs at a good rhythm, clearly an accomplished athlete; Uriah would have trouble following him if running wasn't one of his predominant activities. The disadvantages of being a drug dealer, what can you do. He follows the man for what feels like hours but is probably only minutes, passing by silent storefronts and quietly pulsing nightclubs, their multicolored light filtering from under the doors. At one point a group of Mechanics passes them by, their long hair swinging around their heads like a murky halo, tainted with darkness. They curl their lips at them, and if he was alone, Uriah would probably respond and get in trouble; but the man looks down and keeps walking, and Uriah follows his lead. _Right_ , he reminds himself. _I'm a murderer now_. He doesn't feel all that different, to tell the truth. 

Eventually they get to a car. It's black, a model that's neither old enough to be a collectible or recent enough to attract attention, somewhat sleek. The man waves an electronic key at it; the headlight blinks, the man stuffs his bag into the trunk. 

"Get in," he says. 

Uriah hesitates. "Are you sure it's the best idea?"

The man cocks his gun again, sighing. "It's either that or I shoot you, and I don't like to make a mess."

Uriah gets in the car. 

"You know what you should do?" he says as soon as the man slides into his seat and jams the key into the ignition. "I mean, after you retire from... doing what you do. Killing people, I mean." The man turns to glare at him, but Uriah is undeterred. When he's nervous he gets chatty. And stupid. "I think you should be a salesman. Because let me tell you, dude, you might not be very eloquent, but you definitely have the charisma part down. And people like the monosyllabic thing these days. The whole broody-and-handsome thing is working for you. Really."

"Are you going to talk for the whole drive?" the man asks, sounding irritated. 

"I don't know, are you going to threaten to kill me again?"

"If necessary, yes."

"Then probably. By the way, where are we going? I mean, I know that –"

The car swerves wildly and Uriah's cheek is mashed against the window. His teeth ring. It's not particularly pleasant. "What the hell?"

The man glances at the rearview mirror. "They're following us," he says shortly. He curses through his teeth. 

"Are you kidding me? Is this – is this out of a movie or something? Are you playing a prank on me? Is this a hidden camera? Oh my God, it's a hidden camera."

"Duck!"

Thankfully, Uriah has been doing the drug dealer gig for a while now, so he knows that when people say to duck, even when those people are shady strangers with psychopathic tendencies (and he's being generous here, cutting into someone's head with a saw is more than a tendency), the best thing to do is usually to duck. Which, considering, is probably a good thing to have learned, given that a bullet actually shatters the windscreen and whirs above Uriah's skull, where his head would've been. 

"What the _fuck_ , what the fuck, what the fuck. Okay, Uriah, breathe." The man, who'd taken out his gun and started shooting back in kind, actually stops for a second to glare at him. "Dude," Uriah says to him, "if we're going to be in a life-and-death situation, I think we should know each other's names. So I know what to cry out if I die in a completely heroic situation, you know. I can stroke your face lovingly why I croak out my final words. It'll be romantic."

He's babbling. He's babbling adolescent come-ons at a _killer_. What is wrong with him? The car stops abruptly, skidding painfully on the road. The gunshots have stopped, which could either be a good thing or a spectacular bad thing. On the plus side, they're both still alive. On the minus side, the others are probably still alive too. And there's no noise, which is stressful. Besides, how come there's no one on this road? Seriously? That's like a bad adventure movie. Did they not have the budget for the car chase on the crowded highway or something? 

The man hunches over in his seat, hurriedly reloading his gun. He squirms onto the backseat and manages to retrieve his backpack and takes a few things from it, including a disturbingly sharp-looking knife. This can not be good. For anyone. 

"Stay here," he says to Uriah, and softly slides out of the car. 

Uriah obeys for about ten seconds, after which he gets curious and has to crawl onto the driver seat and peek outside. He's not going to go outside, though; as much as he has a knack for the wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time thing, he's not actually suicidal. He can't see them very well from the window, but he recognizes the two Mechanics who were with the one he killed: they both have the same hair, he hadn't seen that in the dark, long and blond with silver streaks. It's a style. They're also both pointing guns at the man and not looking particularly friendly. But they're talking. Why are they talking? They weren't so chatty earlier when they were trying to make them drive into the ravine. 

The air is tense and fraught with electricity, Uriah can feel it even from inside the car, and he can't help but hold his breath, waiting for something to happen, anything, waiting for the balance to tip. They're still talking: the woman is waving her hand impatiently with her hand, she wants something. Uriah can't see the man's back, but he doesn't look like he's complying. This is not going to end well, Uriah can just feel it. 

But before he can decided to do something stupid like stepping out of the car or trying to escape through the other door, the man draws his gun and shots, twice, at an incredible speed, once between both of the Mechanics's eyes. They look baffled for a second, blood running down their faces in a thin, identical trail, the woman's limbs jerk, and then they fall backwards, their backs slapping on the concrete road, raising a heavy cloud of dust.

Uriah slaps a hand over his mouth to keep from screaming. This is – this is not looking well for him. Driving next to a man who does things like that at the drop of a hat isn't something he envisioned for his life. 

When he gets back to looking, his shoulders are shaking, a steady tremble that feels like he's freezing from the inside. He's seen a lot of things, gang wars and beat-downs and ODs in dank garages, but this... This guy kills like he would do his laundry, precise and calculated, he doesn't seem to feel anything about it and it's fucking terrifying, if you ask Uriah. He risks a glance over at the highway. The man is crouching next to the bodies. He grabs their hands and drags them closer to the car like it requires no physical effort whatsoever. Uriah stumbles back to his seat.

But the man makes no movement to get back into the car. Uriah leans over again, and he's crouching again, except now he's holding his knife and he's cutting the woman's hair on a small portion of her skull, next to her temple. He moves over the other Mechanic, for whom it's easier since his hair is weaved in long blond braids. Uriah would say he anticipates what he does after – it makes a sick sort of sense, after all – but he doesn't, and when the knife slices a wide arc in the air and finds itself stuck into the Mechanic's skull Uriah's eyes bulge, bile rises in his throat, he hides his eyes. Oh God. He should definitely have chosen another career path.

The whole thing goes a lot like it had back in the alley, but as it turns out, it's not less creepy the second time around. Eventually the man comes up with two chips. He stands up and gets one of those little plastic bags out of his pockets, slides them in. Then he crouches back down, takes a breath – Uriah can see his shoulders moving slightly – and hauls the woman on his shoulders. He walks to the side of the road and dumps her body there. Uriah watches as he kicks it until it's more or less hidden in the sparse grass, face down. Someone will notice it, there's no doubt about that, but it'll probably give them a little window to try and disappear. If that's the man's plan. The same thing happens with the other corpse. The man wipes his bloody knife on the Mechanic's shirt and his hands on his pants, frowning even though the blood doesn't stand out on the black cloth. He walks back to the car, and Uriah crawls back to his seat as fast as he can, trying to seem like he wasn't watching. The man gives him a look. Okay, then. He's fooling no one. Great.

For a few seconds silence hangs over them. Uriah is holding is breath, not because he's really afraid but more out of a sort of reflex – the man is looking ahead and Uriah wants to tell him that every second is increasing the risk of the police catching them, or even worse, but he knows that and he's looking right in front of him over the horizon line, as though he was trying to decide where they're going. 

Eventually he reaches for the keys and twists them into the ignition, slowly, his fingers still coated in a thin layer of drying blood. "Let's go," he says. 

He steers the car away from the wreckage smoothly. Both the windscreen and the rear bumper were hit, the car is full of glass shards, Uriah knows they'll have to change it soon, before someone takes too much of an interest. But behind them the Mechanics' car is in even worse shape, is a ship without captains, moored on the asphalt road, parked haphazardly, the engine probably still hot.

"Where are we going?" Uriah risks when they finally reach the highway and start mingling with other cars. They're going out of New York, that much is obvious, the skyline stretching over them as though the keep them in, but they're drifting out – 

"Florida," the man says after a short silence.

"What are we going to do in Florida?" Uriah asks. He doesn't like Florida. He's not a beach-and-sun kind of man. Really, he isn't. 

The man doesn't answer, predictably. 

There's nothing else to do, nothing to wait for, so after a while Uriah relaxes in his seat, props his feet on the dashboard and gets a cigarette out of his back pocket – the only thing he'll be keeping from his five years in that fucking city, apparently, which is a little pathetic, but whatever. He offers one to the man, but he declines.

"What is your name?" Uriah asks. "You never told me, you're lucky I didn't die, otherwise it would've been damnably anticlimactic."

The man's mouth twists a little, but he seems like he's considering an answer. "Andrew," he says after a while, keeping his eyes on the road. 

"Is that your real name?"

That gets him to turn his head towards Uriah, and he raises an eyebrow, as if to say, _you figure it out, Sherlock_. "Right," Uriah says, and lets out a little put-upon sigh. "Well, I guess it'll have to do."

Andrew reaches for the dashboard and turns on the radio; Uriah reclines in his seat, trying not to think.


	2. Chapter 2

**Interlude #1**

You've never seen the sea. 

You've never seen the sea. You don't know about its texture, you don't know about the salt, you don't know anything about the sea at all; you've never met a sailor and you've never felt the sickness, bent over deck railing, your stomach has never rolled at the rhythm of the waves. You don't about the sea's hands and its legends and its color; you don't know what widowers used to call it, you've never imagined their faces as they went down on the beach and spat at it, their faces contorted with anger and grief. 

You've never seen the sea. 

Not that it matters now, because what you're doing now is running, you're running, you're running as fast as you can. At first you were running towards something, to meet someone, but now you're only running for your life. Now you're running because it's the only thing left to do and if you don't run they will catch you and that is unthinkable, there will nothing left back there except punishment and death, you hear their screams, they're calling for you, vermin, vermin... Now you're running for your life.

When you started running the world was still tangible, it made sense and it was snide, fraught with secrets but possessed still with a logic you could understand. The ground was thick beneath your feet, compact, your shoes raised dust with each stride, the sound pounding through your skull, indistinguishable from the beating of your heart. The silence breathed around you, and you were thinking – what were you thinking? You were thinking, _this has to work_. That's what you were thinking. You were thinking, _there is no alternative_. 

And then – then this happened, and now the world doesn't make sense anymore, it's vibrant and it sings, it's taunting you, your life is hanging by a thread and she's the cat, pawing viciously at the swinging ball of cotton, all claws out; your head is swimming and everything is full of colors, your heartbeat has migrated from your chest to your throat, to your lips, it's ready to slip out, it's a gangrene, it's a tambourine, a tambourine...

"Get the girl back."

Did you hear it – did she really say it – or was it all a dream? Worse, did you imagine it? Or did she say it, still sitting at her desk, looking directly at you through the walls?


	3. Chapter 3

**2.**

Now there's an improvement. She remembers her own name. 

It's been a while, of course, years if you really want to count – she'd recovered it for a while with Sara's help, which was boundless, stretched to every little area of her life – but it still feels like a miracle. Waking up in the morning and tasting it on the tip of her tongue, ready to be said if it needs to be; and if it doesn't, she can still stand in front of her window, staring right at the decaying blue paint on the shutters, and say it. Her name. How wondrous. How formidable. 

People think it's a small, silly thing they inherit when they're born and then have to carry around for the rest of their mostly miserable lives, but she knows it's more than that. It seems stupid, clichéd even, but her name is who she is, and it's a great big deal that she can still remember that, after all that happened. Not that she wants to play the victim, because she doesn't. But she is. A victim, that is. Oh, she'd rather not be, you can take her word on that. Everything even slightly privileged about her current situation she would gladly give up for the chance to go back in time and erase those eight years of her life. 

So she remembers her name. Good. She also wakes up every morning, even though she still has bad dreams, one might even call them nightmares given all the blood, but she doesn't, she still says bad dreams like a child – so she has those bad dreams, and she takes a shitload of pills to dumb the pain, of course, but apart from that, everything is good. Dandy. 

She has a cat. Whose name she also remembers, how about that. His name is Cornelius because of an old grandfather from back home whose face she can't remember, but then again she can't remember much from that time, which is probably best in retrospect. Cornelius the cat. The decision stemmed from the fact that she wanted above all to avoid naming it after anyone she'd loved. Little known fact, everyone and everything she loves usually dies a horrible, painful and screaming death. So. Better avoid that kind of thing. 

Cornelius is not particularly personable. He's fat, getting fatter every year, actually, his furry belly hanging off and started this January – she thinks it was January – actually touching the ground when he walks, which is grotesque and sad but typical of Cornelius. He doesn't care. Being a cat, his priority is to make sure he has to do the absolute minimum in life, which means jumping and-slash-or running is out of the question, as is hunting, which is a ha-ha subject and never to be mentioned because the sound of 'mice', even though Cornelius arguably doesn't understand what it means, throws him in white-red rages and she is not particularly fond of having scratches all over her face. The villagers already think she's crazy as it is. 

So Cornelius sleeps and she does what she does, which isn't much, she forgets a lot of things very often – mostly she draws or writes and then tears up her drafts. She's the village's pet project, sort of, meaning that they bring her food once in a while and come clean her house in a strange kind of town effort, still impressed by the old tales of Sara swooping in all those years ago and depositing her on the crest of the mountain, completely wrecked and bloody and already delusional. And what happened after, of course, but Sara was still there and when she left she must have told the villagers something – she remembers her whispering with the town's very own Baba Yaga, an old, wrinkly little woman in flip-flops and a dirty T-shirt she hasn't cleaned in fifty years, town royalty – because after that they never really left her to her own devices. 

Which is fine with her. She's not exactly friendly with the villagers, they think she's insane – with reason, because she is – but she nods at Oscar the repairman and Qumar, who cleans her house once every two weeks, a thorough sweep he's finished with in three hours tops, always going about his task with a single-minded focus that she admires. They keep their distance, she keeps hers, everyone is content in that individualistic way that is the century's trademark. Besides, she's not all that good at talking. She usually gets lost halfway through, forgets what she was telling the person she was telling it to, gets distracted or grabs a sheet of paper and starts drawing without thinking about it, which is something people tend to get angry about. 

But she manages. She's been managing. When she first got here she wasn't sure, of anything, really – events kept piling up and crushing her, and she felt like she couldn't breathe with all the startling horror. She used to think that someone couldn't go on after having lost that much, but that was naïve, of course, because that's the punishment right there, the suffering: having to go on while everyone else recovers, and keep being so profoundly sad even though people forget, the world turns and cadavers get eaten by bugs.

Sara wouldn't be happy with her. She thinks about that sometimes. She thinks Sara would look at her with that disappointed frown on her face, brush her cheek with the back of her hand and say something sweet, something about how she should try harder, she really should. For her own good. But she's sick. She wishes she could say that to Sara. Sara left so quickly after... It felt like a betrayal at the time, and she was blinded with mad, raging anger. With time the passion of it dimmed; now she only wishes Sara would come back. Come back and hold her, and she could tell her about all the horrible dreams and how she wishes she could be a normal girl again. 

But her days have a very specific routine. She wakes up early in the morning – even with her insomnia and her nightmares she tries to stay in bed most of the time. She used to sleepwalk at first, in the Mansion, but that passed soon enough. She has that theory that sleeping in someone else's bed dulls the ache to get away. She always had that ache, but that was normal, to want to get away. When she was a kid everyone wanted that, with reason: the ones that said there was something behind the fields, their hair closely shorn, holding their cigarettes in their mouths with cocky, self-satisfied grins, were the kings and queens of the school. She used to listen to them with dreamy wonder, but think that she wouldn't run away but leave organically, with time, like one of those flowers that just falls with time, not petal by petal but the whole thing at once, a drooping corolla free-falling into the void, picked up by the wind and tangled and carried around until it finds somewhere to settle.

She wakes up early in the morning. She stares into space for a while, trying to quell the screaming in her head. When that's done it's usually an hour or two later, and she drags her limbs off the bed, her feet off the ground, she feels like lead walking to the kitchen. She makes breakfast. Counting calms her down so she counts, the number of utensils she needs to make a pancake (6), the number of steps from her bed to the kitchen table (78), how many fingers this morning (10), the number of sun-rays that hit her square in the eye and leave her blinking and dazed (4).

After that the days... she doesn't know how the days progress. It occurs to her sometimes that she might do things, real things, but she can't remember afterwards, they're so inconsequential. The medication keeps her in a steady haze, her mind foggy and heavy – the only time she feels clear-headed is when she wakes up, the sun bleak and her skull still ringing with sharp-edged images, throat ripped out, blood in the water, running and stumbling and getting up to run again, knees skinned almost to the bone.

It's not that bad, she thinks now, as she pads slowly down the corridor. It's not that bad. It's alright. 

When she gets to the living-room the sun is pouring by the only window, large and slightly dirty, illuminating its way through heavy motes of dust. Cornelius is a warm heap on the back of the couch, purring like a chainsaw. 

"Hello, Cornelius," she says happily. Or at least, that's how she intends it, but her mouth is fuzzy and she can't hear what she's saying. 

She catches a look at herself in the mirror on her way to the kitchen. She doesn't know why she has a mirror, it's not like she needs it – it was probably here with the rest when she moved in, but the question remains: why didn't she smash it? All this time – and she's good at breaking things, that's all she used to do at the beginning, probably the safest way to get the anger out. It was that, she'd told Sara, that or... and Sara had seen the look in her eyes and had let her do it, had given her the plate and watched as they smashed on the living-room, hadn't even blinked, unafraid of the porcelain shards that went flying through the room – 

She takes a deep breath. The mirror is still here, she never threw it at the wall, or if she did she can't remember and someone has replaced it. Who would do that? No, that wouldn't be kindness, only a very pointed, strangely specific form of torture. Unable to resist, she looks at herself. Who would think, after such a long time, she still has some vanity left? Oh, the world is a strange, strange place.

Her hair. It's blonde and tangled, long. Longer than it should be. When she was a child, her hair was always short. She can't remember why it was so important, but she knows it was. _Cut your hair_ , nagged mama, her voice softly anxious, and little her would perch up on the stool and power up the clippers, watch as the little blades got blurrier and blurrier. But now her hair is long. The blonde is no longer luminous, it's dirty and oily. She used to be such a beautiful little girl. 

She put on nail polish a few weeks ago. She found the bottle outside. She was walking alongside the familiar track, and as usual she passed by the bins. Usually she doesn't stop, just takes a deep breath for the perverse pleasure of the rotting smell, especially in the summer, everything decaying ten times as fast, flies swarming over the big container, waiting for the processor who only comes once a week here, such a lost little road in the middle of nowhere. But this time she stopped. She couldn't say why. She must've seen the glint of the little, half-empty bottle on the ground, garish neon orange nail polish. Why would someone throw out something like that? she wondered at the time. When she got home she painted her nails, it seemed like the logical thing to do. 

But it was a long time ago and she's a manual woman, always scrapes and flails and hits her hands here and there, doesn't pay as much attention to her body as she should, truth be told. So it's worn off, the little patches of bright orange chipping at the corners, and she looks like something orphaned, sad and forlorn. It's not such a big deal, though. It fits her quite well, when she thinks about it. 

Yes, she isn't at her best, there's no doubt about that. She's skinny and bloated in parts and her flesh is either red from sunburn or almost translucent, pale skin showing veins at each intersection, her throat, her armpits, her wrists. She looks haunted and slightly crazy, but at least there is no false advertising about her, that's probably something to be satisfied about. Not that she cares about how she looks. Who does she have to impress? Qumar thinks she's pretty, he told her once, his fifteen-year old eyes casting frantically all over the room.

But her eyes, she has great eyes. Everyone back home always said that. Now they seem like they're the only thing on her face, like they take up all the space, they eat the rest with their bright, unadulterated glow. It's strange because she doesn't feel all that glowy, to be honest. But her eyes don't care. They shine like a lighthouse between her nose and her forehead, they're just _there_ , bulging slightly. She's afraid of them sometimes, like now, when she sees them after a long time and she's forgotten just how striking it is to see her own face looking back at her, and those supernatural eyes glaring right back into her soul. Her soul. Ah. Who knows what's hiding in there.

She moves away from the mirror, wringing her hands absently. She has a feeling... but she always has a feeling, and when when she looks outside the sun is spotless, blue. She can almost see Sanibel from here, sprawling North all white and idyllic like nothing bad ever happens there. But it does. Oh, it does. It's funny because people talk about how it used to be, before the Awakening; they say it was a refuge, a place rich people flew to for the holidays. It's hard to imagine that now, even though it _is_ a refuge, at least for her. And she supposes there's a basic comfort in the fact that it's an island, too: such a small, tiny iceberg-tip of an island, peeking out of the sea. An artificial safe haven.

She has a feeling – today she wouldn't be surprised to see clouds roiling overhead and pouring over her the thick warm rain she's come to appreciate over time. But it won't. She hopes for thunder and hurricanes a lot, but in the end it doesn't rain that much here, except for the devastating hurricanes that set everything askew once a year. How hilarious, that after thousands of years they still can't control those one-eyed whirlwinds, crushing everyone and everything into their void. You'd think, now that they're gnawing their way into space travel... Not that she knows about it. She read an article of a magazine Oscar left behind once which was talking about a prototype, the mark who-knows-how-many of some vessel that was supposed to be the first to transport tourists into space, to those nearby planets that have been discovered of late, or so it said. Human colony, it said too, and she imagined ants, a multitude of crawling black ants with shiny backs and clucking antennae, swarming... In twenty years time. The interviewee, a NASA veteran, was enthusiastic and confident. But it's been so long... Maybe those twenty years have passed already, who knows?

Either way, she has more than enough with the world as it is, her little corner of deceivingly white sand and palm trees. The village is sterner, thank God for that. She goes there once or twice a month, to remember that there are other people than her on Earth, because even the roaring engines of the planes that sometimes survey the island can't always convince her. If she let her imagination run wild she would think herself the last living woman on Earth, and wouldn't that be cosy for a minute there, wouldn't that be pleasantly calm before it turned the grids to absolutely freaking terrifying...

She went not long ago. She can stay inside now, she can stay inside for a while. Recover, or whatever it is they call it, even though she doesn't recover. She'll take the medicine. It'll be okay. 

She grabs a sheet of paper on the kitchen table – Qumar always puts some there as well as in the living-room, if she searches for paper she always has some, which might be a curse disguised as a blessing, even though at this point she isn't sure – and scribbles something. Is it text, or a drawing? She isn't sure. Something is coming. She presses the pulp of her fingers to her temples, no, no, nothing is coming, everything is fine, you're going to be okay, little girl – she's not such a little girl anymore, though, is she? When she looks in the mirror she sees something else, something bruised and scared but grown out of childhood, maybe too soon.

She puts her pen down, suddenly exhausted. Her arms drop along her hips and she feels like they're made of lead. Maybe she should go back to sleep. Maybe she should eat something – there are cereal and tomatoes in the kitchen, and that new girl brought her fish the other day. But there is a sour taste at the back of her mouth, and she knows that if she eats she will regurgitate it all as soon as it makes it down her throat. She feels sick. Some days it's not as bad, but today she feels like melting into the ground would be the best solution, the surest and fastest way to achieve that calm she so thirstily craves. Maybe then – 

Cornelius tumbles down from his perch, betraying his species' proverbial agility. He regards her with a blank gaze, nearly dislocating his jaws to hiss out a fanged yawn, and for a second she imagines he's judging her, his heavy eyelids spelling out words she doesn't want to hear, _weak, weak little thing_ – but she is weak. It's the truth. And she doesn't even mind that much, in the end, she just wishes it would have gotten a little easier over the years. She's sure – it must have been at least – it doesn't matter. It's a long time.

But it's no use complaining. Something will happen today, tomorrow at the latest, Sara isn't here and she will get out of the house and walk down Captiva Drive in a few days, maybe, if she has the strength. Today is one of those days – one of those days she goes through with the most difficulty, her limbs so tensely coiled that she only realizes at the very end of the evening, when she melts down to her usual human shape, that she'd become a marble statue for the space of twenty hours. The slightest noise rouses her, terrifies her – but those days, like all of them, end.

Cornelius eyes her as he ambles to his bowl. _Do be careful_ , he seems to say, passing his long rosy tongue over his teeth. _I'm watching_. 

Something flashes in her head – how ridiculous – Cornelius – She starts, sits on the couch, taking her head in her hands. It's all going to be okay, she tells herself. The cat isn't talking to you. Everything is fine, everything is going to be fine. She tries to convince herself that the sky being blue is a sign, prosperity, happiness, but for all the time she's been here the sky has always been this irritating movie blue, has never wavered, and in her head it seems more like a curse. 

Take a deep breath. Her chest expands, everything is going to be okay; the drugs are in the cabinet, close at hand. There's nothing to worry about, after all. 

*

It's been exactly twelve hours, twenty four minutes and three seconds since Andrew killed three people (well, Uriah helped for one of them) and more or less kidnapped Uriah. Not that Uriah has been counting. They've been driving non-stop, New York passing in a blur until they finally got out of the city and sunk into charming New Jersey, which, really, Uriah is never going to like. Especially Hoboken, which is like the ninth circle of suburban hell, especially in the summer. 

He clears his throat. "So... you're not even gonna let me choose the station? Listen, man, I like classical music as much as the next guy, but Mozart's starting to get on my nerves."

Andrew ignores him, not tearing his eyes from the road. In all the time they've been driving, they've managed to keep low profile and they haven't been stopped by the police or the Queen's Militia. Yet. Uriah doesn't want to get too optimistic at this point; you might even say he's holding his breath. 

"Seriously? You're gonna ignore me? I hope for you that we're getting there soon, because I can be very annoying when I'm bored."

As if to illustrate his words, he starts singing the periodical table of elements over Mozart, thinking back to the fond days of getting kicked off the elementary school choir because he'd been caught kissing Mary the trumpeting in the back during practice. And because he was tone deaf. 

"Shut. Up," Andrew grits out. 

"You gotta give in to the intimacy, man," says Uriah, grinning. "We have to build a _relationship_ if we're gonna travel together. And that's based on..."

He lets his sentence trail off, waiting for Andrew to complete it. Andrew gives him a blank stare. 

"You got it," says Uriah, not discouraged in the least. "Communication."

Andrew briefly squeezes his eyes shut, and Uriah gives himself a mental pat on the back for being so irritating he can drive even ruthless serial killers to their breaking point. Definitely something to cross off his bucket list. 

Andrew pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a sharp turn, driving them off the highway. "I need coffee," is all he offers in lieu of explanation, and starts heading towards a rest area. The little white house and knife-fork combo glows white and as unwelcoming as ever in the distance. Uriah slides out the car as soon as they're parked, jumping up and down to help the cramping in his legs subside. A mother of three parked next to them draws her daughter closer to her side, glancing at him distrustfully. Uriah smiles at her. 

When he finally heads inside, Andrew is sitting at one of the plastic tables, his hands wrapped around a cup of coffee, a little notebook open in front of him. Uriah thinks about telling him that he's every killer cliché in the history of cinema, but restraints. He takes a look around: the place is distinctly crummy even for a rest area, with faded yellow walls and in the back, rows and rows of plastic shelves. The restroom is only a few paces away, and okay, that's disgusting – they could've at least had the decency to put a wall behind the place where people eat and the freaking _toilets_ instead of cramming everything together. Uriah was hungry, but now he just fights down a vague nausea. He probably isn't missing much, anyway – even the coffee is usually awful in those kind of places. 

Andrew doesn't seem bothered by it, though, drinking in small, minute sips, his fingers closed over the cardboard cup. 

"So," Uriah says, sitting down facing him, "we're going to Florida? You decided where exactly yet?"

Andrew gives him a blank look. "I know where."

"You decided to _tell_ me, then?"

Andrew actually looks like he's hesitating for a second, but he looks back down to his notebook without answering. With the sun only brushing his face, his earlobe and a small tuft of hair, he looks remarkably unthreatening. Uriah, though, Uriah has seen him kill more people than he thought possible to kill in one night in a fashion that was especially disgusting and cruel, so he tells himself he knows better. 

"Will you ever tell me your real name?"

"No."

That settles the conversation. Andrew drinks his coffee and writes mechanically while Uriah nibbles on a stale waffle and collects more inexplicably dirty looks from the mother from before. Eventually they get back to the car, which is now unpleasantly warm and smells of melted leather. Prime conditions for a friendly roadtrip with your favorite murderer. It's only when they're back on the highway that he tries his luck again.

"You realize how profoundly unreassuring this situation is for me, right? I mean, not that you're not charming and all that, but I wouldn't say no to a little more information. Think about it. Who am I going to tell it to? I can't contact anyone back in New York, I have no family, and I'm stuck with you in a car twenty four hours out of twenty four. I don't really see when I could go running to the police. Who probably have a warrant out for me, by the way."

Andrew doesn't say anything for a minute, then – "Captiva."

Uriah frowns. "Captiva – that's the island, right? What are we going to do in Captiva?"

"Don't push your luck."

Uriah burrows in his seat. This is going to be such a long trip. "Okay, so can you tell me anything else? Like, _anything_? Seriously, at this point I'd be glad to hear about what kind of ice-cream you preferred as a kid. Or, like, now. If you're into ice-cream. Ice-cream is totally acceptable for adults, I mean, except it's pistachio because that shit is disgusting, man. I'm sure you're not the pistachio type, anyway. You don't look like a pistachio guy. I swear, I think they've got, like, this specific skin condition, a kind of green –"

Andrew looks like his eyes are going to burst out of his head. Yep. Uriah's babbling usually does that to people. Though he can't imagine why. He's _charming_. 

"Okay," Andrew says through gritted teeth. "We're going to Captiva to pick up a woman."

Uriah leans forward. "Girlfriend? Friend? Sister?"

Andrew keeps his eyes set on the road. "None of the above," he says curtly.

Uriah thinks for a moments turning the possibilities in his head – before he stops, his mouth hanging slightly open. "We're not going to -" He clears his throat. "We're not going to kidnap anyone, right? I mean, sure, it wouldn't be that much a surprise after all the, uh, murder, but I'd appreciate if we stopped with the death-sentence felonies, you know, for a while. So that I can recover." 

"We're not going to _kidnap_ anyone."

"Good. Good. You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure, Uriah." It's almost like they're friends, when he says his name like that. It's almost possible to forget that Andrew is not an annoyed college comrade but a potential psychopath with frightening sang-froid. "Her name is Quinn, and she's going to help us."

"Help us do what?" He could say he'd hoped that Andrew was going to leave him on the side of the road – it seems like the best solution at this point and besides, Uriah had always been a scrappy guy – but that is getting more unlikely by the second. Which is understandable in a way, since letting Uriah free to tell what he's seen to anyone would be pretty stupid, but, you know. He's getting a little bit concerned about his future here. "Us?"

Andrew actually tears his eyes off the road to throw him a sharp glance. "Believe me, I'm about as happy about it as you are. But it's either that or leave your corpse on the side of the road, so the motto from now on you shut up and do as I say."

Since he's been making threats since they met and has consistently not followed up on them, they're starting to lose a little of their effect. Which is why Uriah can say, "Yeah, I'll probably do neither."

Andrew glares at him. Uriah almost awws, but figures it's probably wiser not to push his luck. He keeps silent for a few minutes, looking out the windows. He didn't get out of New York a lot when he was living there, because the police are a little too interested in him for his taste and the borders officers are getting more thorough each year, but it's not for lack of wanting. He actually loves traveling, and even though this is a strange – unique, even – kind of vacation, watching the road stretch in front of them soothes him. It's beautiful, too, in a way only a country you love can be: patches of countryside and the hills bursting from the horizon from time to time, with the sun slanting and bouncing off the windshield. 

"You ever been to Florida?"

The question seems to catch Andrew by surprise. "Yeah. I've been pretty much all around," he says, sounding vaguely wistful.

"Yeah? Like, for your job? What do you even do?" he asks before he can think better of it, because it's probably something unsavory that Uriah really, really doesn't want to know. Sure, he's a drug dealer, which is not without its lethal accidents once in a while, but all the signs point to Andrew being an actual murderer who does that for fun and/or for obscure scheming evil overlord reason. "We already have an evil overlord around, you know."

Andrew casts him an irritated glance, even though there might be something like amusement buried deep, deep down. "I'm a contractor," he says simply, barely giving Uriah a glance before he looks back down at the road, which is really not that fascinating. 

The next ten or so hours are more or less silent. Uriah sometimes says things which induce short, to-the-point conversations, during which he doesn't learn much, save for the fact that Andrew is a complete tight-ass but at least doesn't like pistachio, which is one good thing to be said for his general character. Not that there's much that'll make it worse, now that he's all but confirmed that he kills people for a living, but Uriah's an optimistic person, and he believes that everyone has their good side. No, really. 

Other than that, they listen to music. The radio these days is saturated with post-electro house crap, which Uriah can usually tolerate if it's a club and blasted in his ears very loudly as he necks someone with inebriated gusto, but scratches his ears the rest of the time. Andrew eventually settles for classical music of the really old kind. It's not as bad as Uriah was led to believe, even though ultimately soporific. He ends up falling asleep with his face mashed against the window after two hours of staring at the highway, the sun glaring in his face and the traffic humming morosely around him.

When he wakes up the sun is going down, red lighting up the horizon. It's a vaguely terrifying sight, especially for Uriah's still-blurry mind, and he has a knee-jerk instinct of asking Andrew to turn around instead of continuing to drive right into the heart of the furnace. 

"Calm down," Andrew says next to him, his voice cold and stony but for some reason, reassuring. Uriah breathes in. Sure. It's not like he's afraid of the sun, right? Especially when he has a lot of much scarier things to be afraid of.

"Yeah," he babbles, still disoriented. His mouth tastes like someone died and defecated in it at the same time, he has a crick in his neck, he still doesn't know what they're going to do in freaking Florida, but apart from that, everything is great. "Yeah, sure, yeah."

Something like a smirk drags up the corner of Andrew's mouth. Bastard. Does he never get tired? They've been driving for like, one day and a half, and to Uriah's knowledge the only time they stopped was, like, five minutes at that rest area with the disgusting coffee and the notebook. Is Andrew a robot? Because he doesn't seem all that keen on the Mechanics, but it's not like he has shown things like, you know, hunger, sleep or actual freaking _emotion_. Instead of looks tired, he actually seems full of renewed determination. He even casts a glance at Uriah like he's an actual person, which is definitely a little freaky and not entirely reassuring, but on the other hand Uriah is relatively sure he doesn't face a violent and bloody death in the near future. His gut's always served him, so he burrows in his seat, groaning. God, his back is hurting like a motherfucker.

Andrew presses his lips together, and after a beat of silence he says, "You're getting off as soon as we cross the border."

What? Andrew is the one who insisted on keeping him in the car, he made Uriah leave his city and his job – and okay, he was being chased by the police and the Militia, but you know, he probably could've found a way out of it, he's resourceful like that – because he was afraid of being ratted out, and now he wants to just, what, drop him off in Florida with nothing except his bones and a really bad sense of orientation? How about no. 

"Yeah, no," he says succinctly, which pretty much sums up his opinion on the matter. 

Andrew's eyes widen slightly. His eyes take on an icy hue. "I know it might have sounded like a question, but it really wasn't," he says coldly. 

Uriah shrugs. "So you're gonna do what, boot me out on my ass?" As soon as he says it he realizes it might not have been the best idea – it's not outside the range of possibility that Andrew might do just that. "What if I decide to rat you out to the police?"

Andrew raises a mocking eyebrow. "I'm sure they'll believe a homeless drug dealer who claims he witnessed a triple murder." What a smug jerk. He wasn't that smug before. "But go ahead, knock yourself out."

Uriah sulks for about three minutes while he tries to come up with arguments why Andrew really shouldn't leave him on the side of the road – and if the irony of the situation occurs to him, he quashes it down with a vicious kick to the balls, because seriously, could his life get any more fucked-up? 

"I can help you," he says when he can't actually find anything. Great. He's on the fast-track for homelessness, and now he's repeating himself. 

Andrew's mouth quirks, like Uriah's plight actually amuses him. "Yeah?"

"Sure," says Uriah, sounding about twenty times more confident than he actually is. "I mean, whatever you're going to do, you can't do it alone, right? You need a partner. Besides it's like a rule of the universe that you can't go on a road-trip alone."

This time, Andrew lets out a quick laugh. "Is it now?" Yeah, he's having none of it. 

Uriah holds his breath, but Andrew gives no sign of kicking him out right this minute, so it looks like he's going to have to wait until Florida to know his fate. Urian can charm the pants off him in the meantime, anyway, he's good at this kind of stuff. Right? Getting himself out of hairy situations by talking his adversary's ear off is definitely one of his talents. 

The rest of the drive is pretty uneventful. When they cross the Florida border Uriah holds his breath for about twenty minutes, but after half an hour of Andrew not parking them and throwing Uriah out of the car he starts to gradually unwind. Maybe he's changed his mind and decided Uriah might be of use, after all. Uriah still isn't quite sure it's the best solution for him, but what better place to be than next to a serial killer who doesn't want to kill you? You don't get much safer than that. Uriah tries to convince himself and it works surprisingly well, thanks to long years of applying the same type of fucked-up logic on pretty much everything. 

Andrew looks oblivious to Uriah's interior dilemma. He's driving calmly, smoothly, looking both entirely unperturbed and like he's already decided what is going to happen. Now if only Uriah had an inkling of what that is. The Florida heat seems to want to crush the air around the car, trying to suffocate them from the outside. Uriah had already been there a few times when he was a kid, on holidays with his parents, chiefly in Miami – vaguely ratty hotels with big pools smelling thickly of chlorine, which they would ignore in favor of the sea, not minding the drive. Uriah remembers with startling precision the time the owner of the hotel, a Mechanic man with glossy black hair, wearing an expensive and elegant suit, had come to visit the grounds. The staff had been hushed, the service ten times better than usual; Uriah had hidden behind one of the balcony pillars and watched him walk through the hall, talking in hushed tones with the manager. There was no distaste, even though he saw his parents wince and grumble, their eyes narrowed – only curiosity. 

They drive around Orlando and then join the I-75 south; Andrew still doesn't explain what they're going to do on an _island_ , of all things, and by the time they reach Fort Myers a few hours later Uriah is reduced to making up scenarios in his head. Andrew continues steadily, and finally engages them on a road that leads them to Sanibel Island. Andrew drives right through Sanibal and onto Captiva's main road, Captiva Drive, still looking right ahead. Uriah isn't so impassible, and can't help but gape slightly. He's never been to the islands – in fact, he's not sure he's ever been to any islands at all, and it isn't really that extraordinary, except that the idea of driving on that chunk of land which stands on such an amazing, immense ocean is somewhat dizzying. Uriah admonishes himself, but can't quite shake the delight. 

He remembers reading somewhere that both islands – Sanibel and Captiva, which they now seem to be crossing – used to be tourist get-aways fraught with tourist resorts and expensive distractions, where flush millionnaires would spend a few weeks before returning to the ordinary wealth of their LA homes. But when the economy shifted with the Awakening, the islands were one of the only territories left more or less untouched by the Mechanics, and since they wanted to keep it that way and, more importantly, avoid any kind of mass exodus, they strove to become as autarchic as possible.

Uriah can see that now. The houses are utilitarian, almost all of them equipped with small vegetable gardens; there seems to be a few factories near the beach, the gleam of their solar panels glaring up, silently brewing; and Uriah wouldn't be surprised to find cultures at the heart of the island, where the land is the most fertile. It's a strange, industrial-looking little town, quiet, removed from everything – the streets aren't exactly animated but there is occasional, furtive movement as they drive: a butcher carrying deliveries inside, a group of giggling teenagers, a janitor, the big screen in the center square, relying news from the capital even though people don't seem to care, going about their business without giving it a second glance. 

"You've already been here?" Uriah can't help but asking when he glances over at Andrew, who looks unperturbed by everything that is happening, his face as unreadable as ever. 

"No," he says simply.

The car climbs up a little hill until they reach a dusty, inhospitable yellow path. The houses thin until there's nothing but dust and gravel, and when Uriah looks out the window he can see to the edges of the island, a thin ribbon of cerulean sea at the far edge of his vision. It's a mixture of beautiful and auspicious, and Uriah is half-convinced Andrew will tell him to get out of the car, make him kneel on the sand and shoot him in the head. 

Fortunately his imagination has always been a little wild and entirely inaccurate, so when Andrew finally stops the car they're in the middle of nowhere, yes, but Andrew shows no sign of wanting to kill him. Instead he starts walking towards a little house in the distance. Uriah scrambles out the car and follows him. 

The heat assaults him as soon as he's outside. They're still close enough to the sea that's he's able to smell it, a pungent, salty smell; other than that it's all rotting garbage (there's a disposal not far behind them) and car fumes. Uriah has no idea what they're doing here. If they are indeed getting the person Andrew was talking about, she must be one hell of a girl to live in a place like that. 

It takes about a quarter of an hour to get to the house, and they don't talk. Uriah manages to keep his mouth shut, mostly because he has to half-jog to keep up with Andrew's crisp pace, and so spends most of his time huffing and puffing, his face getting redder by the minute. The house is a tall, slumped little thing, the walls a dirty white. It stands out purely on virtue of being the only house in a few miles – not to mention all the other buildings they saw so far were stark white, reverberating the sun, not exactly welcoming but not sinister either like this one definitely is. It doesn't seem like there's anyone living in it: the shutters – pealing blue – are closed, there's no smoke coming out, no blinking electronic interface like on the other roofs, no car.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Uriah asks. "This looks like the perfect set-up for a bad horror movie." This is just asking for it. Were there really an axe murderer inside waiting for them, he wouldn't even be all that surprised.

But when Andrew knocks on the door, three short, precise knocks, there is no axe murderer. In fact, there is nothing at all, which is half disappointing and half seriously creepy. 

"I don't think there's anyone in there," Uriah says, but Andrew ignores him completely and goes on to try and open the door. It gives effortlessly, unlocked, revealing a sliver of dark interior.

Andrew doesn't hesitate one second before stepping inside. Uriah hovers outside, unsure. "This is breaking and entering," he says plaintively, in the vague hope that it will deter Andrew, but all he gets for his trouble is a haughty look that spells, very clearly, _do you think I care about a B &E? I just killed three men in front of you._

Uriah sighs. He's got a point, he thinks to himself, and he steps in. They walk through a small, dark damp-smelling hallway; the door at the end opens on a kitchen which, following the general style of the house, is cramped and vaguely dirty-looking, though not actually dirty from what Uriah can tell. Andrew peers inside before closing the door. He doesn't seem to particularly care about being silent, but doesn't make a lot of noise either. Uriah notices, with the sharp attention one needs in his – former – line of work, that Andrew is careful not to leave his fingerprints anywhere, touching everything with either his wrists or his elbows. He even manages to make it look half less awkward than Uriah knows it is which, kudos for that. 

The only living organism they encounter, apart from a plant which seems to have died long ago in horrible circumstances near the bedroom, is an enormous cat with a lazy eye, who yawns widely as soon as it sees them, as though making a point to show them exactly how disdainful it is of them. Uriah makes shooing motions with his hands, and the cat gives him a look which is clearly cat for, _moron_. Uriah glares. They eventually make it to the living-room. It's completely is dark, the only rays of light coming from the interstices in the shutters; it takes a few seconds of looking around for Uriah to actually notice the girl sitting on the couch. 

He nearly screams, but in the end only clamps his hands to his mouth in surprise. When he glances over at Andrew, he's motionless, looking fixedly at the girl, who doesn't seem to have noticed him. All in all, it's a strange situation – the girl on the couch, sitting quietly, her gaze fixed in front of her, on the wall or maybe the turned-off TV; Andrew, looking at her with a gaze Uriah can't decipher, maybe satisfaction and maybe anger; and Uriah, looking at the both of them and understanding nothing at all. 

Eventually, when it becomes clear that nothing is going to happen if he doesn't make it, he clears his throat. 

"Um -" he starts, but as soon as she hears him the girl jolts, stumbles off the couch and falls half on her back. Her face is coiled in mute terror and her hands are crossed in front of her face in a defensive posture. It wouldn't do her much good, Uriah remarks to himself, remembering how easy it was for Andrew to kill the two soldiers sent after them – the thought chills him to the core. God, he hopes that's not what they're here to do. 

But Andrew only lowers himself to a crouch, his face as emotionless as ever. "Quinn," he says simply, without infection. 

She starts at the name, as though it reminds her of something but she doesn't connect it to herself, at least not immediately. She shakes her head one, twice, blinks, disoriented. 

"We're here to help you," Andrew says, his voice soothing, although that is the only soothing thing about him. Uriah can't help but find it strange, a half-assed attempt at disguise. Andrew seems more professional than that. "I'm here to help you."

The girl lets out a low whine that gurgles in her throat. "No," she gets out after much effort, raspy and throaty. She sounds like she hasn't spoken for an astonishingly long time.

A flash of annoyance fleetingly crosses Andrew's face at the rejection, but it's gone as quickly as it appeared. "We're here to help you," he repeats, as though convinced that it will sink in if he says it enough. The darkness is making Uriah nervous; he shuffles on the spot, not sure what to do. Maybe he could make a run for it. Maybe – 

Before he can think more about it, Andrew is back next to him, his head bent to speak quietly. "Try," he says. 

Uriah's eyes widen. "What? I don't even know her!"

Andrew assesses him coldly, and looks back up at his face, apparently pleased with what he sees. "You're less threatening than me. Cajole her into talking to us, and then I'll take over. Okay?"

Uriah considers saying that he doesn't exactly have a choice, but he's been trying putting himself in danger the least he can those last few days. He sighs and crouches in the position Andrew was in a few seconds ago. It's uncomfortable, though, and eventually he sits cross-legged on the carpet, a few feet from the girl who seems to have lost interest in them and is now looking on her right towards something Uriah can't see, her head lolling a little. 

"Hey," he says in a whisper. He holds out a hand. Why does he have to be the good guy? Sure, he's not a serial murderer, but it's not like he's exactly a model citizen either. He doesn't know how to do this. "I'm Uriah."

The girl's head whips towards him. Her eyes glow supernaturally in the darkness, and Uriah wonders how he hadn't noticed them before. They're pretty much impossible to miss, bulging and bright blue, completely untainted; they look like they're eating the rest of her face. Uriah can imagine that someone who looks at her would only ever remember those eyes and forget instantly all the rest, the sharp line of her mouth, her pudgy chin, the drooping eyelids and button nose.

"I don't mean you any harm," he says, swallowing. The girl's gaze, trained on him, is unnerving and makes him feel antsy; he feels his armpits dampen. She doesn't let on that she's heard or understood anything he's said so far, a praying mantis with her wide forehead and big eyes, slightly predatory in a strange, absent way. "I just want to help you." It's a shot in the dark, but it can't hurt. 

When she finally speaks, Uriah almost misses it. He's sure Andrew doesn't, though, because he hears him shifting behind his back, moving closer. "You're not Qumar," she says quietly. 

Uriah blinks. Well. "No, I'm not."

She cocks her head. Her hair falls in a beam of clandestine light, longer than Uriah's ever seen on someone who's not a Mechanic, dirty blond. "Why?" she asks simply.

Uriah doesn't exactly have an answer to that.

"Who is Qumar?" he hears Andrew ask behind him, but she doesn't seem to hear him, keeps her eyes trained on Uriah. Her skin is so pale it's almost translucent. "Is he a friend of yours?"

Her gaze drifts away again. "No." She yawns. When she puts her hand in front of her mouth, her nails are painted orange, though the varnish is badly tended to, worn off on the sides. "I'm tired." It's only then that she seems to remember to be afraid, lapsing into a strange sort of panic. She scrambles to her feet, kneeing Uriah in the chest in the process, and backs up against the window, flailing her arms in front of herself. "Who are you?" she screeches. "Go away!"

Uriah gapes. She continues flailing but doesn't attempt to run away; Uriah can see that she's holding onto the window-frame, which means she's probably too weak to walk. Andrew moves behind him, but Uriah stands up and stops him with a dismissive hand without really thinking about it. He's surprised when Andrew actually stops and retreats near the door. 

"Quinn," Uriah says, and the name is strange in his mouth so he says it again, to get used to it – "Quinn. We're not trying to hurt you. We just want – " he lets the sentence trail off, not sure how to finish it. 

It's Andrew who does in his place, talking from a few feet away. "I'm Sara's son," he says matter-of-factly. 

The name acts like a sesame on Quinn. Her eyes widen, her jaw drops – suddenly some kind of clarity smoothes over the wrinkles around her mouth and she doesn't look insane as much as merely tired and vaguely crazed. She wobbles on her legs – Uriah's hand shoots forward to steady her but she avoids it and regains her balance by herself. Her mouth opens and closes a few times, her hands drop to her sides, her chin tips down. She lets out a long, drawn-out breath. "Sara," she says eventually, almost reverent.

She looks up at them, this time ignoring Uriah and looking at Andrew directly in the eye. "Sara sent you?"

Uriah turns around just in time to catch Andrew's slight wince. But he answers – "Yes. She sent me. She told me to look for you, Quinn."

Quinn frowns. Her hand comes up to her forehead, rubs there. "Why?" she says after a few beats of silence. She looks more relaxed now, but still on her guard. Uriah can't exactly blame her.

Andrew looks caught by surprise for a second. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out of it; takes a step forward, then back. Finally, he looks down, back up, and says, "I need your help."

The world seems to still for a second. Andrew's eyes are fixed on Quinn, his mouth tight. Now that she's standing up, she's backlit by a tiny pool of sun, and her hair looks like a halo, a bushfire. Uriah can't imagine what Andrew would need her help for, or even that he actually said the words in the first place. The whole thing seems like it's happening in the twilight zone, honestly. 

"Can I open the shutters?" Uriah eventually says when no one seems forthcoming to give any more information about, well, anything. The darkness is making him twitchy. 

Quinn mutters an absent, "Yeah," not tearing her eyes from Andrew. 

She still lets out a little shriek when light floods into the room, harsh and white. Everything is suddenly illuminated and the objects stop being mysterious artifacts and go back to being both reassuringly familiar and vulgar. For a second the room rings hollow, and Uriah takes the opportunity to look around – but there's not much that he hadn't guessed in the half-darkness, except maybe for several crumpled sheets of paper all over the room, littered pencils and pens. Quinn shields her eyes, her mouth open.

Andrew takes the opportunity to sit on the couch, as close to her as possible. He nudges her a little but she doesn't react, sits mellowly beside him. Uriah watches, feeling strangely like an intruder. 

"Quinn," Andrew says quietly, and Quinn finally removes her hands from over her eyes, red-rimmed and tired, "when my mother – when Sara helped you..."

"I remember," Quinn interrupts with an unexpectedly firm voice. 

"Right. She told me what happened to you."

Quinn doesn't look away, but she starts trembling. It's a horrible thing, watching her – it starts with her fingers and spreads to the rest of her body like a forest fire, and in the space of a few minutes she's buzzing, rasping dry sobs. 

"It's going to be okay," Uriah says, but it doesn't mean much, and he doesn't dare coming closer to try and comfort her. 

"She told me what happened to you," Andrew repeats, "and I know you want revenge. Who wouldn't? I don't blame you. I want revenge, too. Because -" and he lowers his voice, taking a hold of Quinn's hand as her shaking subsides, "they killed her. They took her from me, Quinn. And no one knows that place better than you do, so I need you to help me take my revenge. For her."

Quinn breathes out shakily, reclines in the sofa. "Revenge," she says wonderingly. Her mouth is tight, her eyes sharp. She glances over at Andrew – she looks like she's taken her expression from him, a strange sort of mimicry, icy, disdainful indifference. "Did they really kill her?"

Andrew doesn't hesitate. "Yes." Uriah is so, so confused. Someone is going to have to explain to him what is happening at some point.

Quinn licks her lips, a strange, vaguely disturbing gesture. "Was it her?"

"Not... not directly. It's never her. It was -" he bends to whisper something in her ear, and Quinn's eyes widen, then harden, taking on a terrifying black hue. "I know."

Quinn stands up, disengaging her hand from his. "I'll help you," she says, looking outside the window, her eyes scrunched up. She looks like she's already moved on and is now entirely preoccupied with re-discovering what's standing just outside her window, as though she'd never seen them before this day.

Things go considerably more smoothly after that. Quinn doesn't exactly loosen up, but she takes to talking a little bit more, and save for a few episodes and her systematic shrinking away when someone tries to touch her, she's relatively lively. She tells them the cat is called Cornelius – "Lazy bastard," she says, her voice inflectionless – and even shows them where the food is. Uriah cooks some pasta for all of them and Quinn watches him from one of the kitchen chairs, fingering her loose-knit pink sweater.

Uriah doesn't know what to think about her. He ponders over it as he sets the water to boil: it's hard to tell how old she is, but she must be between twenty and thirty, with drooping shoulders and a face that wouldn't look out of place on one of the heroin junkies that make up Uriah's clientele. He can't say he's entirely uncomfortable around her – at least not as much as Andrew clearly is, even though he tries his best not to show it –, given that those kinds of people used to be a part of his daily life until not two days ago, but there's something off about her. Uriah doesn't doubt she's self-medicated, but it's something else, a shiftiness, a deep, rusty madness that flares up without warning.

From the hushed conversation Andrew and Quinn conduct in the kitchen while he's cooking, Uriah gathers that they're staying for the night. Tomorrow they'll leave the island and 'decide what they do' – or at least that's what Andrew says, even though Uriah is convinced that he's got his plan all figured out, whatever it is. Quinn doesn't say much through all that but hearing Sara's name seems to have focused her and given her some sort of purpose; she doesn't fidget half as much, only nods, her wide supernatural eyes fixed on Andrew as he talks. 

Uriah feels like an outsider, like he's watching something take place the meaning of which evades him completely. It's a strange feeling, like his skin is itching. He's used to being in the know, in one way or another – he used to have a whole network of bums and prostitutes in New York who would help him run his business for minimal remuneration. But there is clearly a story behind what's happening here that he can't even begin to guess, much less understand. It's a little irritating. The whole thing is, really. 

They eat in approximate silence. The house is gloomy and reeks of desperation, and Quinn's body is perpetually shaken with tics, nervous blinking and trembling. Uriah's hands thrum with the need to soothe her, but he knows he can't – he's seen enough of those people to know that they rarely respond well to physical contact, Quinn clearly fits into that category. She gobbles a few pills with her water before they start eating, trying to be inconspicuous and failing. Andrew doesn't remark on it, his single-minded focus turned on his food. He eats like Uriah knew he would, reasonable, regular bites, never looking up. The situation is strange and vaguely uncomfortable; not for the first time since they've left New York, Uriah tries not to think about what's going to happen to him now, but the silence makes it harder to keep the worry at bay. 

Eventually the dishes are cleared and cleaned, and Andrew touches Quinn's arm lightly, trying to direct her towards the living-room again. She jumps, her eyes going wide; her lips roll over her teeth and show her pale gums. Andrew backs off, raises his hands, but he looks a little irritated nonetheless. 

"Where do you sleep?" he asks. 

She shakes her head once, twice. "Upstairs," she says simply, her voice a little shrill. Andrew doesn't seem to notice. "There's a guest bedroom, near... the bathroom. You can sleep there."

"I'll wake you up tomorrow," Andrew says, nodding his head for thank you.

"Yes," says Quinn. She starts walking away, and then, turning just a little, so that her face is still half obscured by the creeping living-room shadows: "I'm doing this for Sara, not for you."

Andrew's face hardens visibly. "I know," he says, his voice toneless. "Me too."

When he comes back to the kitchen he seems heavier, his movements slow and tired. The reason his face is so frightening is because he doesn't wear anything on it, not sadness and not joy – he looks like a blank canvas that refuses to be painted. He could be anyone, he could be twenty and he could be forty; Uriah has seen him kill and talk and has ridden with him for more than twenty hours and he's still not sure he could describe the guy.

"You have to explain things to me," he says decisively when Andrew's gaze sweeps over him absently, without pity for his obvious weariness. 

Andrew raises an eyebrow. "Do I?"

It's not like it matters now, Uriah tells himself to force himself not to back down. He's in this neck-deep. "Look, you can kill me if you want, but I don't think you want to, do you?" Andrew leans against the doorjamb, looking faintly amused by Uriah's amateur detective theatrics. "But if I'm going to... I don't even fucking know, if I'm going to do this I need to know what _this_ is. I'm sick of hearing you talk like you're a government spy, okay? The mysterious thing was sexy for about five minutes, but now it's getting boring."

Andrew actually gives a short bark of laughter, but he pipes down immediately. His face immediately goes back to being stony and emotionless in five seconds flat, and Uriah finds himself wondering if it even happened. 

Then silence fills the room, like an obese, malevolent beast – Uriah quietly suffocates on it, moves about the kitchen to try and keep it out of his throat. Truth is, and it probably sounds superstitious, but this house gives him the creeps. Even with the shutters open, darkness seems to creep in the corners, ready to leap out and grab one of them in its tentacular arms; it smells musty and faintly like a long, lingering illness; it's miles away from any other house in the island – the closest road is Chaplin lane, which isn't much more than a dust path, if Uriah's being honest. The island wasn't exactly lively when they got here, but at least they saw a few locals. On the way up here is an egret placidly stared them in the face, its long white neck stretched in their direction, as if frozen in place as it watched them drive by. But there's nothing here, not even a mean-looking bird. It's like the nature outside doesn't breathe, only rasps under the heavy sun, hollowed out.

Uriah wasn't expecting it at all anymore, lost in his sinister thoughts, when Andrew finally answers. "Tomorrow," he says, tenser than usual. He puts away the salt, the last remnant of their dinner. "I'll tell you what you need to know tomorrow, before we leave. Then we can decide what to do."

That last part should be the most worrying, because Uriah is perfectly aware of what it means: _I'll decide if you're expendable_ , but it seems he's infused with the same sort of chilling supernatural calm that seems to douse the whole house. 

He stands up, his fingers itching for a cigarette. "Okay," he says. "I'll take the couch."

But when he looks up, of course, Andrew is already gone. Uriah sighs and slowly makes his way to the living-room.


	4. Chapter 4

**Interlude #2**

It's surprising and sudden, a bullet to the heart. It aches, a sweet and stinging ache that resonates in her bones; it makes her ring like a giant instrument, like string, like an empty wooden belly. 

And she thinks, _here I am_. 

She thinks, _I'm alive_. 

How wondrous.

*

The door is open, but she doesn't step out of the cocoon right away. She can feel, before anything else, over the tingling in her hands and that overwhelming brouhaha in her skull, something pulling her to the side, a presence that is haughty and imperious, demanding that she make herself known. It talks. It talks to her in the big silence, without using words, the fluty chant of sisterhood.

 _Sister_ , it says, a voice so like her own, her own voice which she's never heard, that she – 

She turns her head. _Sister_ , she was called, and so that must be what she is, that must be her name, her function, her moniker. The caller has lips, a pair of red, thin – no, there is something else. A hand. Outstretched. 

But she can't reach, not yet. For now she's feeble and confused, she doesn't understand the mechanics of her body; she feels like a rusty machine or a new toy, something the cogs of which haven't been oiled yet. But she looks, and with her eyes she devours, taking in all the colors, computing, and the same eyes look back at her and take in her soul, she has a soul, how, how – 

"Sister."

But this time she talked, didn't she? Her mouth opened and her skin stretched over her bones. There must be a name hidden in her, she thinks. Two names that resonate together – it's a certainty. 

The feeling is hard to contain. It jumps inside her, a swooping sense of belonging mixed in with sick unease, and she can't take anything in because there's too much to _feel_ , the unprecedented miracle of the universe opening itself up to her – or maybe it's she who pries it open with her newborn hands and looks in, and blinks, blinded...

Her whole body is tingling. If she understood how to she would sit, take her head in her hands and breathe for a few moments, to find the footing she so desperately needs. But she can't. That too is certain, there is urgency, a fire spreading along her nerves like red flames licking up the length of her spine, climbing up until she's entirely ablaze. So she can't stop and breathe, but she can look up, look around, and realize: the room is a giant coffin. The heavy scent of death threatens to suffocates her. 

Everything is white. The presence next to her only pulses with precious red, and the still-buried bodies have auras a soft orange, but everything is white. The ceiling is long and reeks of metal, arches over her head, the walls are pristine and she's a prisoner, she's never been more sure of anything. Yes, something went wrong with the plan and she's the result of a mishandling, the grain of sand into a gigantic machine, she is – she is –

Without her permission her fingers lift to her collarbone, and at the base of her throat they find what she knew was there since the beginning, a mark, burned into the skin; it says DEDALUS in letters of flesh, blunt and hideous, a scar that protrudes from the inside like the stump of atrophied wings.

 _Sister_ , the voice repeats once again.

Now that there is strength in her, even if it is feeble and diffuse, she can sense that the voice comes from a being not lesser than her, but ill, an illness like a gangrene, that takes bones and endeavors to crush them to dust. Those, she knows instinctively, are the worst kind of illnesses, for there is no curing them: they are insidious and care nothing for the strength of mind of their carrier. But she is strong. She will help the voice. The voice has awakened her, helps her and, she feels deeply and with unmatched certainty, belongs with her – she will help. She will triumph. She is made for victory.

For now, though, she sets on discovering who she is. When her head stops ringing and the shock of the letters – DEDALUS: what can that mean? –has worn off, she tries to lift her hand again. Her body is built like this: hands, head, bust, legs, fingers. There is little logic in her construction but she understands it instantaneously, though she can't figure the workings of it entirely yet. Her hand moves. It appears in her frozen vision: white, unblemished skin, unadorned. There are no rings, her nails are short and blunt. Those are delicate hands – she is a woman –, and for a second she watches the soft pink at the edge of her nails, fascinated to find that she is a being of flesh of blood. Of flesh and blood. Bones, too. 

During long minutes she awakens, taking in the stilted stillness around her, moving slowly so as not to alarm this precious body. There is something suffocating, overwhelming, to coming into existence with such full awareness. She feels like she is made of iron under this skin, and will never die; and at the same time she doesn't move because she is afraid of the vulnerability she can sense creeping in the fabrics of this body. Maybe her soul is the only thing iron-cast, she decides after a while – it's focused and bright, ready to solve and conquer. Her eyes sting with the light and there are a thousand possibilities stretching their wings before her, breathless, ready to take flight. 

Only when she manages to calm down the frantic beating of her heart – there are so many things to do, so much still sprawling outside her reach, in the unknown, hidden in the careful darkness! – does she dares thread her fingers through the silk that streams down her back. Hair, she knows, but she can't help being awed and oddly grateful: it's like a long shawl and could cover her newborn nudity from head to toe, almost, in vibrant red. When she brings the strands back to her face they do not clash on the incarnadine of her skin but compliment it, glossy and seemingly endless. 

She gathers her thoughts. The building around her is immense, but she is not small, despite her physical form. Already she knows that she will be all-encompassing, and she doesn't care about how she will achieve power, only that she will have it. She is thrumming with kinship but still blind; the only thing to hang onto is this sister who was beckoning. 

"Sister," she says, holding her hand out at random, in the starch whiteness of the universe (is this all there is? Whiteness stretching to infinity, only distantly broken up by patches of hair and skin?). "I am here."

Fingers close on her hand. She doesn't jump. She squeezes harder, instead. The voice laughs, but seems imperfect, slightly raucous. She is surprised. "You are," the voice says. "Finally." Then there is more laughter, fluty and musical. Her heart is beating so hard, like it wants to break out of her chest, and she doesn't know why. "Look at me."

So she looks – she looks. What else is there to do? The world is immense and mysterious, and will not yield, she knows. There will be fights and adversity and she is alone, barely born, unsure of everything save for the fact she breathes and is, after all, a creature of skin and bone. The voice called her _sister_ and she will not be sister-less if she can help it, she will not be alone. On instinct she knows that the world is not a welcoming place, not for anyone and least of all for her. Her coat of red hair will not be armor enough. 

She looks. She turns her head and the woman is sitting next to her. She is tall and beautiful, with arched eyebrows and a long mouth, smiling obliquely like she already has a secret she is ready to reveal if asked the right question. Her hair isn't red. Her hair is white, falls on her shoulders and all the way down to her ankles, billowing around her and following the curve of her hips, the elegant slope of her arms. 

She tilts her head. "My name is Asta." She can feel, from the way it sounds in Asta's mouth, that she does not like her name, loathes it like one would loathe a dog collar.

Asta looks kind, and it makes something stick in her throat. Her eyes sting and her stomach relaxes. All of a sudden she feels peculiarly exhausted, hit with a strange kind of awareness, like the whole of her perceptions has ganged up on her and decided to assault her at the same time, leaving her only to blink and endure the onslaught. Asta seems to understand, holds out her open arms: she falls into them, realizing, for the first but not last time, that her body, for all it is strong and resistant, superior even, is puny when it comes to the challenge life still has to sic on her. She will make her peace with that, but for now she is a hurricane-wrecked land. She closes her eyes. Sleep beckons.

"Don't sleep," says Asta, stroking her hair with something she would call love if she did not feel, instinctively, that love equates weakness. "We have things to do first."

The idea of _doing_ , after so much _feeling_ , sounds insurmountable. "What do we have to do?"

Asta smiles down at her. With her thumbs, she traces her face, lips, eyebrows, nose. Asta's discovering, like she had been, earlier – and it's a hallowed moment, a moment to hold one's breath and revere, because it appearsthat love can be borne out of nothing, can appear just like her consciousness had, only a few moments before, and there is something infinitely wonderful to that. Asta joins their lips together in a chaste kiss. "Sister," she breathes, her voice pure of any trace of hesitation. "You are here for great things."

She ducks her head. It's as if Asta's words made it real: when she looks back up she knows. "Yes," she says with a smile, and something at the bottom of her stomach stirs, catching careful fire. "I am."

*

One of the first questions she asks is, "Do I have a name?"

Asta shakes her head sadly. She cups her jaw in her hand, dragging her down to press their foreheads together. "It's a slave name," she says.

"Tell me. I want to know."

There's no hesitation: already she knows that a name, slave or not, means power, and power is what she wants, without cognitive wisdom or reason, through pure instinct. Give me my name, and wake me up. Give me my name, and create me. 

"Nomi," Asta says, her eyes glinting like she's proud. "That's your name."

She takes it between her teeth, chews on it for a minute. It feels good, in a strange and foreign sort of way: _No-mi_ , it's got balance, it's curt, it's elegant, it's rough like a freshly-polished apple. No shine and no glory, you know? Those things have to be earned. 

"I like it," she decides. 

Asta smiles, sharp. "Good. You've only got one."

Life doesn't get less strange after that, but at least she's got a friend – no, not a friend, a _sister_. The hours she spends in the room, a prison lit like their captors are afraid of shadows, with light streaming in every crevice of metal and glass, are endless and eerie, but Asta guides her hands and explains. No one visits them for days. Everything is silent and there is no way out. Asta tells her as soon as Nomi starts searching – they can't leave. They never could leave. The sadness in her eyes is deep and resembles rage too much for comfort, and Nomi bears it with the instinctive fondness one has for a sibling. She doesn't question her, either; There's a brittle fragility in the way she moves that doesn't bear questioning.

She never really asked if they were really sisters, but when Asta touches her face she looks like she's touching a mirror, like she's discovering a part of herself she'd been hiding for better times. Besides, blood doesn't count. Nomi knows that too, like she knows all things, engraved and ready, etched in her bones, things she can't learn. It bothers her, at first, but you accept all things. Asta says that too. You accept the shackles, and the prisons, and the name. So why not accept too the certainties of the world? It makes sense, or at least it makes sense to her. 

"What's this?" is one of the only questions Nomi dares ask, baring her throat to show off the hideous mark, embossed in her flesh. "Who's Dedalus? What does this means?"

Asta sighs. "That means you're not like them. They don't ever want to forget."

Maybe, Nomi decides then, maybe it's better not to know certain things. She has understood, since the first time Asta pressed her lips against hers and said, _you are here for great things_ , that she is the hand that smites, the fighter. She is the head that bears the crown, and Asta's shoulders will bear the rest – the guilt and the knowledge, everything that drags a leader down. There's a reason Nomi's hair is this kind of red, and she doesn't need to be told what it is. She accepts it; in fact, her blood boils for a fight. 

And so the time comes. It comes almost unexpected, breaking the stretch of one of those pale hours where the light makes her want to sleep. Her stomach is empty and metallic, and Asta's been talking on and off for hours, resting her palms on her knees like she's sick, even though she isn't, can't be – "People like us can't be sick, darling," she said.

The door opens. This room has been many things in Asta's mouth: a temple, a prison, a battlefield; it's been a child's room, a hospital, a laboratory. When Nomi asked she said it was where they were born, where they were created, said they were the things humans had dreamed and nightmared about for so long, _created_ instead of grown, the invention of one man, one megalomaniac, god-fearing man. She said: this is why they invented god. This is what they wanted to believe in. She said: now you've got to show them, what it means to be divine. You can't create without facing the consequences. 

And this man – this man doesn't look like Nomi expected. He's not sturdy and he's not strong, he's not a thousand feet tall, and she can see from here that the strength that courses in his veins has nothing to do with Nomi's, that she could pull him apart without even blinking. She looks, and he doesn't come close, because he must know it too. Asta leans into her, somehow managing to do it while remaining perfectly motionless.

"Who is he?" Nomi asks, even though she knows, she _knows_ this is the man who bent over when she was stil alseep her and worked her into who she is, and she hates him for it, a hate so burning and so limitless that she feels it could exist without her, outside of her body, burn into the air on its own, raw and red and perfectly furious. It's a strange feeling. 

Asta shakes her head the slightest bit, fast enough that he won't notice. He's not alone, Nomi remarks: he's got with him a whole team of men and women, all wearing white coats and that same little pinched frown. His skin is brown, his eyes sharp and rapacious. Yes, she hates him. 

"I think you know," Asta says sagely, but then, with an exciting newfound rage that Nomi is impressed to find becomes her, she adds: "He's your slaver."

You've got to wrap your mind around it, that word: slave. You've got to take it, mold it, and turn it into a weapon.

*

When Asta comes up behind her she cuts a dark shape in the light, her shadow big and scarecrow-like on the window. Nomi watches her come in the glass, follows, with informed eyes, the long braid swaying at her side and the clock-like brush of her dress on the skin of her ankles. She looks almost gentle. 

It's only when Nomi sees her eyes, framed and clear in the spotless glass, as Asta links her arms around her waist and rests her chin on the crook of Nomi's neck, that she remembers: Asta isn't gentle. She has many qualities, but that one isn't to their number.

"What are you thinking about?" Asta asks; her voice drips honey on Nomi's collarbones, and she sighs. 

"Nothing. Just – you know, the past."

Asta hms. "I thought we weren't thinking about that. Isn't that what you said, look forward to what's to come?"

"That was a speech," Nomi says, instead of _that was a lie_. 

She doesn't expect it when Asta's fingers harden on her hips. Her back collides against the glass before she can even take in breath, and she lets out a small moan of pain, taken by surprise. She should know better. Her body gears back into a fighting stance but it's too late, and Asta's eyes tear into her, unforgiving.

"You haven't been practicing," she reproaches, her voice cold.

Nomi pretends her head isn't still spinning. "I don't need it."

"Obviously."

"I trust you."

Asta takes a step forward. Her braid hits her hip, almost twisting around her thigh the way it does sometimes, and she flips it back irritatedly. "I told you; you can't trust anyone, Nomi. Not your ministers, not your people, not your friends. I thought you understood that. Why do you think –"

"What about you?"

Asta blinks, only once. It's an easy habit to catch, the humans do it all the time and Asta has mastered the art of pretending long ago, when she understood she was her only chance. "What _about_ me?"

"Can't I trust you?" Nomi takes a step forward, and Asta could reach out and grab her wrist, throw her back against that glass in a matter of seconds, could even hit her hard enough to break the window and make Nomi fly, land in the street below like an angel – but she doesn't. "I know I can't trust, Asta, I'm not stupid. But you're my sister." She reaches a hand, carefully; the touch of her fingers makes Asta suddenly reverent, and she leans her forehead against Nomi's palm. It was always one of Nomi's peculiar talents to inspire this kind of devotion, breathless and unquestioning. "You're everything I have."

"It doesn't matter. You've got to be more careful, Nomi." 

She pulls away, motions at the spanning glass under which, they both know, the crowd buzzes and mills, thousands of bugs only temporarily quieted, fed, calmed. Peace is only ever temporary, that's something Nomi learned from the greats back when she was spending her days shut in her room with her dusty volumes, her nose plunged in Plato, Pline and Sun Tzu. War is the constant, broken state; peace is only a momentary relief. 

Asta breathes in, almost startling her. She's close, her side plastered against Nomi's. The heat is comfortable, familiar. "They're only waiting for one slip, one mistake, and you're out. They wouldn't hesitate to tear you into strips and feed you your own flesh, Nomi. You've got to remember that. They make it up like we're the monsters, but we're not. They are."

Nomi leans back, molding her body into her sister's. They fit together; they always have. "I know."

Silence comes easy to them: at first there were never enough words for who they were, for the blood spilled and the power and the greed; but after a while they quieted. Nomi buried herself in her books and Asta took to being who she is now, that great puppeteer, strings hanging from every part of her body, her nails and her heart and her wondrous brain. Nomi is fine being the symbol. It's what they call her: their queen. Who wouldn't have enough of that?

"Do you remember when we met?"

"Of course I do," Asta's answering whisper sings. The past animates and enrages her in turns. It doesn't matter if they don't talk about it, it talks without them, it comes back and clings because who they are now is only the fruit of who they were before. _Don't forget us_ , had said Asta that first day, before Stephen came to her and told her she was a puppet, a toy, a slave gone wrong. _We're heroes in the making._

"You were right," she says now, and Asta, of course, doesn't need to ask.

But she doesn't answer. She pushes Nomi against the glass again and pulls her in by the nape of her neck, fingers tangling in that red billowing spill of hair, rests their foreheads together. The silence comes easy to them; they don't need it to hear each other, or to understand.


	5. Chapter 5

**3.**

"You what?"

Andrew gives Uriah a look, exasperation clear on his face. It seems to be the only feeling Uriah has awakened in him since they met, and Uriah would feel proud of himself if he weren't too busy being completely flabbergasted. "You heard me."

"I think I heard wrong, actually. Because surely you didn't say that your mysterious plan basically comes down to 'I'm going to kill Nomi, _the queen_ Nomi'. Right?"

Anyone else would be getting agitated by now, what with the repetition of that utter insanity of a plan – but then, if he actually thinks he can do that, and planned it to boot, Andrew must be pretty deranged. Not that Uriah had any doubts about that. He just thought Andrew was the straight-laced, clear-minded and entirely unfeeling version of evil, not the _complete and utter maniac_ one. Apparently he was wrong. 

"Have you even thought about it? Are you aware how crazy it sounds just _saying_ it?"

Still impassive, Andrew reaches for the pack of cigarettes on the table and shakes one out in his palm. "Please," he says, his lip curling disdainfully. "Don't be quaint."

Uriah wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. It's still hellishly hot, which is not making this any easier. Except – maybe this is all a hallucination. It's so hot he is hallucinating this plan – yes, that must be it. 

"I need to sit down," he says, making no movement to.

Andrew lets out a strangely undignified snort, seeming to have graduated from annoyance to amusement.

After a few minutes pass and Uriah unfortunately doesn't wake up, he takes a deep breath. "So you want to kill the queen," he says. Nope, still doesn't make more sense when he says it. "With my help."

Andrew stops smoking for a second, tilting his head wonderingly. "Not necessarily. I could kill you."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Uriah swallows. He takes a few agitated steps around the room. " _Why_? Why do you want to do that?"

Andrew's face closes up. "I have my reasons. Besides, doesn't everyone want her to die? I'm just doing the world a favor. She's a tyrant, in case you haven't noticed."

"I've noticed, thank you. But there's a reason no one has offed her yet, too."

"Yes. People are stupid cowards."

Uriah glares at him. "More like, she has the most advanced security system on the planet and a virtually indestructible, immortal army who already did a very good job at showing us who's boss. Not to mention she's practically immortal."

Andrew does something with his face which, were he anybody else, could be called a pout. "I killed three of them in front of you. You'd think you'd know better than to think they're indestructible."

Uriah throws his hands up. "This is insane. You're insane."

Andrew shrugs. "So, are you in?"

"What about Quinn? What's her role in all this?"

Andrew spares a glance in the direction of the living-room. Yesterday, Uriah would've said it wasn't accidental, but since then he's learned that there are things that come to Andrew naturally, as strange as that seems.

They haven't seen Quinn since she went to sleep last night. Uriah saw her through the half-open bathroom door when he went chasing for a sleeping pills, cramming a handful of medications in her mouth. Her other hand was twisted in her sweater, her arm draped across her belly. Uriah didn't know it was possible to look that tired, and he's worked with junkies for about ten years. 

"She used to work in the Mansion. She knows the layout."

Uriah quirks a surprised eyebrow. "I thought that was for life. Once you're in there –"

"Yes," Andrew nods sharply. "She got out."

"How? Is that – does that have to do with your mother? What happened?"

"You don't need to know that."

"You can't just tell me half the story!"

Andrew regards him calmly. "Watch me."

Silence falls back down on them. Eventually Uriah stops pacing and sits down at the table. He steals a cigarette from Andrew's pack. Andrew twitches but doesn't say anything. Uriah smokes for several minutes, deep, long drags, even though he hasn't liked the taste of cigarettes since he was sixteen. The island looks beautiful through the window, especially with this sun; Uriah could bet that down on the beach the sand is blindingly white. Not much chance they'll go down there, though. 

"This is dangerous."

Andrew nods. 

"And it will probably get me, you and everyone else involved killed."

"Probably."

"I know about fifty percent of the story behind _why_ we're doing the most stupid thing there is to do on this damned planet."

Andrew tilts his head. "Ten."

Uriah sighs. He takes a drag on his cigarette, ducks his head. The sun beats hard on the nape of his neck. One of them will have to go back inside at some point and check Quinn didn't actually off herself before all they got all that madness started. 

"I'm in," Uriah says. 

He thinks he sees the corner of Andrew's mouth quirk in a smile, but it's probably just the light. 

*

Andrew dispatches Uriah to check on Quinn while he goes into town and buys a few things they'll need. He doesn't explain his reasoning (or show his shopping list) to Uriah, but Uriah's been an outlaw long enough to know that getting their supplies in such a secluded will lessen their chances to get caught. But they will. They will get caught, and then they'll get tortured, and then they'll get executed to set an example for the masses. Oh god.

Uriah is distracted from his macabre reveries by the sight of Quinn bent over her bed. There's a suitcase open in front of her, an old thing that was probably out of fashion even back during the Awakening. She's haphazardly stuffing clothes in with no regard for either order or, apparently, sense. 

"Hey," Uriah says, careful not to spook her. Her eyes are still wide and rabbit-like: they scan across the room quickly, behind Uriah and around him, before coming back to his face. There they stop and seem to peruse his traits for – for what?

She doesn't look much better than the day before, to be completely honest. With all those pills, which Uriah assumes were sleeping pills, he would expect her to look rested, but she doesn't: she's jumpy and frail, her eyes circled with sick purple. She hasn't changed, either; she's still wearing the same faded pink sweater and blotched orange nail polish. 

Uriah puts up his hands to placate her. "It's fine. I just wanted to –"

"What do you want?"

Uriah swallows. It's going to be fun, traveling with that girl. "Do you need any help?"

She finally comes to a standstill, which is to say that she stops moving all of a sudden and just stands there, her arms hanging along her body, her face blank. There's no more panic, no more agitation: it looks like it's all been drained out of her by an invisible pipe and now she's just... empty. Completely empty. It's more than a little frightening. 

"I don't know if I introduced myself yesterday," he says when he's swallowed the surprise and thick, indistinct foreboding. "I'm Uriah."

He holds out a hand. Quinn regards it for a moment but doesn't take it, instead shaking her head, as though to wake herself up. "Yes," she says after a while. "You said."

She turns back to her suitcase, and for a moment it seems like she's going to ignore him altogether and continue stuffing it with random items. But eventually she lets go of the pair of jeans she was holding and sits on the bed. The mattress caves a little under her, though why Uriah can't determine – she can't weigh more than a hundred pounds. 

He doesn't say anything, though. Quinn takes her head in her hands, breathing heavily. Then she looks back up and blinks a few times; she bites her bottom lip, glances nervously at the window. "I'm sorry," she says, so quiet that for a second Uriah thinks someone else's stepped into the room and spoken in her place, "about all this. I get these... episodes sometimes. I'm a little sick."

Euphemism of the century, Uriah thinks, not unkindly. "Yeah," he murmurs, for lack of a better thing to say. 

Quinn laughs. It's surprising, in a way, but it's also shrill and bitter and a million other things Uriah can't name. "Don't worry. I'm not going to bite you, you know. You surprised me. Yesterday. You surprised me, that's all. Sometimes people don't come into the house for days and I get lost in my head."

 _How's it like in there?_ Uriah thinks to ask. He won't, though. 

"You're still coming, though?" he asks, just to make sure. 

Quinn nods. She pumps her fists on her knees, as though to exhort herself to stand up. For a few moments she looks extremely focused, and then she springs on her feet like a jack-in-the-box. Surprised, Uriah takes a quick step backwards, his heart rate spiking. Quinn sees it and gives him a floating sideways smile. 

"Yes," she says. Uriah has to think to remember the question. "You heard him. Revenge. We humans – we can't resist that, can we?"

Uriah thinks about this: all the times people came to him with scarred hands, arms and legs punctured a thousand times over, their hair a mess of coated blood and spit. _I'm doing this for them_ , they said in the thick darkness, the whole body shaking as they handed Uriah their money. _To show them_. It's another kind of revenge, but not all that different – because revenge, as much as Andrew might try to deny it, is always a form of self-destruction. 

"You're right," he says. He takes a breath. "So, do you need help with that suitcase?"

Quinn tilts her head wonderingly. "Sure," she says after a while. "Go get my pills, okay? They're in the bathroom, the first the first drawer. Um, you can take everything. In that drawer."

Uriah nods. He's about to leave the room and do what she asked when he remembers the cat from the day before. He hasn't seen it since, but now that he thinks about it the bowl of water in the kitchen was less full this morning that it was when he went to sleep. His back still hurts from that horror of a couch. "What about the cat?"

Annoyance flicks across Quinn's face. "Cornelius?" she asks. Her hands flap at her side. "He'll be fine. The townspeople come up here. They feed us."

"What if they don't, once they realize you're gone? I mean, do you know what'll happen to him?"

Those eyes. They really are incredible, aren't they? Uriah can't seem to get over them. And they're so clear. That's probably what the ocean looks like down there. 

"Oh. He'll die."

*

Andrew drives the car closer to the house and they load everything in the boot, Quinn's suitcases and Andrew's quite copious shopping. Uriah forces Quinn to leave a message for Qumar, who's supposed to take care of Cornelius while she isn't here, and makes sure that her packing holds a modicum of sense (though she's right, it's not easy: it's not like they know either where they're going or how long, exactly, they're going to be there). Andrew smokes leaning against the car door, unaffected by the whole process.

"You ready?" he asks when he sees Uriah walking towards him, getting redder and redder with every step. Damned heat. Uriah nods. 

He leans against the bonnet while they wait for Quinn. It takes a while for her to arrive, but they wait in silence, sweat soaking through both their shirts. It's a bit reassuring, honestly. Uriah was starting to question whether Andrew was actually a human being – though that's probably not the best joke to make around him. 

Eventually Quinn makes it out the door. She flinches as soon as she steps out in the sun, stilling in place and blinking several times before shielding her eyes with her hands. Her suitcases drop on the ground with a thud. Uriah starts forward, convinced for a second that she's going to collapse and they'll have to drag her to the car unconscious, which would just serve to make the whole situation even worse (and would effectively be kidnapping, now that he thinks of it); but after a few minutes she raises her head wipes her hands on her belly, leaving dark-ish stains on the fabric of her dress. 

Uriah looks over at Andrew, who hasn't moved. He's looking down at the map, his eyes carefully hidden behind his sunglasses. He does look up, however, when Quinn picks up her suitcases and starts walking towards them. Her flip-flops drag in the dust, raising small brownish clouds that stick to the pale skin of her legs. 

"Stop," says Andrew. 

"What? What's wrong?" Her voice is still hoarse.

"We can't let you go with that hair. I can't believe I didn't realize that earlier." He glances coldly at Uriah, looking about as pissed at him as he does at himself. Uriah almost points out that he isn't technically in charge of Quinn or, you know, anything, but he thinks better of it. "Get back in."

Quinn tangles a hand in her hair un-self-consciously. "What's wrong with my hair?"

Andrew clucks his tongue, but doesn't answer. When he gets to Quinn's level he grabs her forearm. She immediately starts struggling, as though his touch burned. Andrew lets go and strides past her and into the house.

"How long have you been in there?" Uriah asks when he gets to her. She's holding her forearm, shoulder curled inward in a protective stance. 

She shrugs. "Long time."

"The laws have been around since the Coronation." She winces at the word. Uriah doesn't ask. She probably has enough neuroses to keep him busy for however long they're going to spend together, anyway. "Shoulder length tops."

This time she laughs. She drops the suitcase, which falls on its side, and tangles both hands in her hair, messing it even further. She looks like a demented witch. "Oh, you mean the _hair_ ," she says in a chuckle. "It's too long. Yeah, figures. I didn't even think about that. He's smart, isn't he?"

"Who, Andrew?"

Quinn nods. 

"I guess so. Doesn't take a genius to know that you need to get that fixed, though."

She laughs again – at him, this time, or at least that's the impression Uriah gets. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

She doesn't pick up her suitcase, leaving it knocked over in the dust. Uriah glances at it, worrying, for a moment, that someone might walk by and take it, but it's not like this is a traffic-heavy zone, so he just leaves it. He follows Quinn into the house. Andrew's already sat in the kitchen, holding a pair of fake-silver scissors in his hand; when they walk into the room he hands them to Quinn. "Shoulder-length maximum," he repeats.

She looked fine before that, if slightly unconcerned, slightly absent – but as soon as she sees the scissors she goes back to the girl Andrew and Uriah found the day before, sitting prostrated in her dark living-room, ticking every box for commonplace insanity. She shirks back, folding her hands over her mouth; she almost topples into Uriah's chest but he steadies her, hands on her shoulders. She struggles out of his grasp quickly, her teeth chattering. 

"No," she mouths. The sound that makes it out of her lips is a whispered wheeze, but her refusal is obvious. 

Andrew clucks his tongue, _we don't have time for this_. He looks up at Uriah, and Uriah is vexed, unexpectedly, to realize that Andrew only ever acknowledges his presence in any given place when it serves his purpose. Then again, they're not exactly friends, are they? 

"Can you take care of this?" he asks. His eyes are cold, feelingless. "I have to make calls, make sure the house is ready."

Uriah nods, not because he feels up to the task but purely as a knee-jerk reaction to the power that exudes of Andrew, calm and commanding. 

"Wait," he says when he rights himself. 

Andrew is already getting his phone out of his pocket. Irritation flashes across his face. "What is it?"

Quinn isn't moving. She's retreated into the corner of the kitchen near the door, and crumpled on herself, her shoulders shaking. For all the franticness of her body her face looks strangely composed, almost cool. Eventually, as though realizing that they've all stopped on her behalf, trying to guess what she's going to do next – it's true in Uriah's case, at least – she laces her own hands, sliding her palms together. 

"You can do it," she says. 

Once again Uriah feels like there's a whole other conversation happening in the room he's not privy to. Andrew has taken a step forward, and now he's almost flush against Quinn, their eyes locked together. Uriah would have thought that she'd been uncomfortable with that kind of proximity, but she doesn't protest. She slides around him, their arms brushing together, and picks the scissors off the table. 

"You do it," she repeats stubbornly.

Up until now everything seemed to hold preternaturally still, like dust in a slanted ray of light – the kitchen appliances had been gleaming almost maliciously and the pouring sunlight had seemed a fog rising from under their feet, imprisoning the three of them in a dream-like daze – Quinn and Andrew in their own incandescent mythical circle and Uriah a little to the side, not quite in the shade but not quite burning either. As soon as Andrew takes the scissors from Quinn's outstretched fingers, though, the energy bleeds out of everything and even the light deadens, flattening on the kitchen tiles. He does it with a little sneer, like he can't believe he's wasting his time on something as mundane as cutting hair. 

"Sit."

Quinn obeys, dragging a chair in the middle of the room. He places himself behind her and starts cutting the long strands methodically, the way he seems to do everything. There is no emotion in the gesture; hair falls in thick locks from Quinn's head and onto the ground, hitting the tiles with a soft, swishy sound. It's completely different, and yet Uriah can't help but think back to the blood slowly spreading on the ground around the head of those Militia Mechanics on the highway.

"How short?" Andrew asks. 

Quin shrugs. 

Boredly, Andrew cuts it so close to her skull Uriah can almost see the bumps and irregularities of it, like the surface of the moon Uriah remembers seeing on TV as a kid, when they installed the first laboratories up there. It's a strange look on her, makes her look like a farmer's daughter, one of those girls Uriah sees walk into clubs once in a while, with their knee-length skirts and their wide, innocent mouths, made-up like dolls. Usually they're back within the week, and they follow him back into the alley, begging for some crack. The only ones who take anything really strong are those who don't intend to go back home, but when they come to him for cocaine their nails are glittery their eyes circled purple; that close-shorn hair is already grown-out, irregular spurts of wheat blond they haven't yet had the time to regularize. 

He has no idea who Quinn is, Uriah realizes with a start. It's not a surprise, really. He's already gotten used to her life on the island being surrounded by a thick mist of secrecy, but... Andrew said she worked in the Mansion. She must've had a life before that, parents, siblings maybe. Does she come from the countryside, or is she one of those city girls for whom entering Nomi's service is like taking the holy orders? He'll have to ask her at some point. 

Meanwhile, he leans against the doorjamb, cocking his hip slightly. Quinn must have alcohol somewhere in one of those cabinets – he hasn't drunk anything since they left New York, and he sorely needs it if he's going to keep his sanity through all this. 

"Did someone already try?"

Andrew's fingers skid lightly on the scissors. Her eyes closed, Quinn doesn't stir. 

"What?" Andrew asks. 

"Killing Nomi. Did someone already try?"

For a split second Andrew looks furious, as though Uriah had revealed crucial information that mustn't be said out loud; but the next minute it's like it never happened, he looks as composed and unimpressed as ever. He gives a light shrug. "Of course. Don't you watch the news?"

Uriah is about to answer – he doesn't, actually, the world is depressing enough without them – when Cornelius shifts heavily against his legs. Uriah looks down, and the cat gives him a shake of head, as though to say, _what are you doing here_. Quinn makes a little noise, waking from her stupor, and opens her hands, sticking the heels together so that they open in a sort of flower-shape. 

The cat hesitates. Maybe the hair is confusing him, Uriah thinks, with reason: Quinn looks almost absurdly different without the messy, tangled swathes of dirty-blond hair framing her face, and instead this almost shaven head, looking slightly darker for the lack of hair. He makes up his mind eventually, though, and shuffles towards Quinn, butting his nose against her fingers once or twice. 

Andrew looks annoyed at Quinn's change in position, but he keeps cutting. It's mostly finicking now, but Uriah isn't in the least surprised that Andrew is the sort of guy who takes excruciating pains to do everything, including what he didn't want to in the first place. Everything has to be perfect, right? If anything, it bodes well for their common future.

"What happened to them?"

Andrew's gaze fixes on Uriah this time. He shrugs. "Tommy JR Anderson," he recites, "2065. Executed. Ursula Swanson, 2071, sentenced to life imprisonment. I think they tortured her, but that piece of information wasn't released." He quirks an eyebrow at Uriah. "Do I need to continue?"

A glacial chill settles between Uriah's collarbones. He shakes his head. "So that's –"

"Either we kill her or we live under her tyranny for as long as we live, and probably a while after," Andrew interrupts. "Yes." 

"I think her hair's good now."

Andrew casts a glance at the top of Quinn's head, as though he'd entirely forgotten her existence. She doesn't notice, petting the cat with hard, prodding fingers. He doesn't look pleased; he's frowning like an old friend enduring the annoyance only out of familiar, grumbling fondness.

"You're right." He sets the scissors on the kitchen table and stands up, grimacing slightly when his feet immediately gets swamped in hair.

Uriah doesn't say anything as Andrew makes the best work of the hair he can with a broom borrowed in Quinn's closet. He sweeps most of it in corner, not stooping to actually throwing it out. 

"Why you, though?"

Andrew tilts his head, his eyes blank. "Why not?"

Uriah shrugs. "I just don't understand why you're the one who has to do it."

"It's exactly this kind of logic that has allowed her to stay in power for three decades. Someone has to do it."

"You said you had your reasons," Uriah points out.

"I do."

Quinn flicks her fingers at the cat's nose, and he finally scuttles off, offended; she reclines in the chair, suddenly bored, and runs a hand over her skull. A horrified look dawns on her face. She laughs. "You butchered it," she says to Andrew, without it being clear if she intends it as a reproach, a compliment or a mere joke.

"What are they?" Uriah insists.

"I'm not going to tell you."

"Why?"

Andrew smirks. "Do I really need to explain?"

It is sort of obvious, in a twisted way, that Andrew wouldn't want to flaunt his personal life and reasons for first class felony at a near-perfect stranger; on the other hand, now that Uriah is in, he'd like to know for what, exactly, he's fighting. 

"If we're going to do this together, I'll have to know at one point of another."

Andrew rests his palms on the back of the chair. He nudges Quinn's back, and she springs up like a jack-in-a-box, a strange cross between a toy soldier and a terrified child. Andrew grins a manufactured grin at her, brushing a hand against her wrist. "We're going," he says.

Quinn shrugs. Uriah doesn't move, and Andrew doesn't make any movement to leave either. His gaze sweeps over Uriah, as though he'd never really taken the time to internalize what he looks like before and is only now taking in that mole above his upper lip, the tousled hair and slightly defiant grin, memorizing his face in case he needs it later. He cocks his head. 

"You will," he says. It doesn't sound quite like a promise, but it's all there is; Uriah will take it.

Before he has time to blink, the kitchen is empty. Uriah spares a quick, amused look at the pile of hair bunched against the back wall and follows Quinn and Andrew out the door.

*

By the time they actually start the car a few villagers have rounded around them, watching them silently, wide-eyed. Quinn doesn't seem to see them; she goes on about her business, her fingers clamping spasmodically on the dress she put on for the occasion. It doesn't really flatter her figure, only serves to make her look more sickly, with her thin, vein-stricken legs sticking comically from under the flappy yellow fabric.

The villagers were there yesterday, too, actually. They started coming a few hours after Uriah and Andrew arrived, gathering in small clumps at the end of the dirt path without explanation. Quinn told them no one ever comes here, to the top of the hill, but then again, if the way she was completely shut-in when they arrived is any indication of how she usually lives. They're not disruptive: they stand in small, dark clusters around the house and don't ask questions, don't shout, don't even explain – only look at them with their heads bowed, their eyes dark. There is something about them that's proprietary, the rough-edged disapproval of people who've learned to be wary of strangers on their land. It's understandable, really, especially if, like Uriah's been given to understand, those people have more or less escaped the colonization. 

So he doesn't acknowledge them and instead slides in the passenger seat of the stuffy car. The leather of the seats is burning, but it's not exactly surprising – the sun spares nothing on the island. Maybe on other circumstances it would be reassuring, but as it is it's remarkably unnerving, what with them probably being wanted felons and all. 

But no police officer comes barging in to take a hold of them, and Uriah relaxes. Quinn gathers the folds of her dress around her and shifts in the backseat, her head bowed. There's a book on her lap but she doesn't look at it, doesn't even seem to remember that she has it; instead she just sits there, coiled, her arms wrapped around herself. She doesn't once glance out the window as they leave the island. 

"Let's go," Andrew says over the roaring of the engine. 

Struck by a sudden need that someone, if not Quinn, do it, Uriah twists around and fixes his gaze on the house, not blinking until it finally disappears in the yellow cloud of dust and car exhaust fumes, the contours of it blurring as though it had all been part of a hazy, distant dream. 

*

Really, the drive was bound to be awkward. 

Quinn is fidgeting on the back seat, sometimes glancing outside before shrinking back into the seat as though the sight of the island was unbearable; Andrew is driving with a focus driving doesn't usually require, and Uriah is desperately trying to forget what they are, in fact, en route to do.

"So, do you have an actual plan?" he asks eventually, to break the silence. He's not sure he actually wants to know, but either way, it's probably better to be prepared. 

Uriah can't decide if it's annoyance or pure force of habit, but either way Andrew decides to answer him. "I have a – well, calling it house is maybe too generous, I have a place in the Hamptons, not far from the Mansion, that my mother bought before –" he breaks off, "we're going there. When we get there I'll make Quinn draw up plans, supply it with the information I've got, and we can figure it out from here. I already procured blueprints as precise as I could get, and I've studied the security system. It's tricky, but once we find a hacker it shouldn't be too difficult to get past the primary systems." He glances over at Uriah. "Yesterday Quinn confirmed what I thought, which is that there's a few secret passages. There are in all those houses, especially since they closed up the chimneys."

Uriah whistles between his teeth. "You're prepared."

"What did you think?"

Uriah shrugs. "I don't know, everything you've done since I've met you has been bordering on the psychotic, I'm just glad you have a plan."

For a second, Uriah looks like he might retort something, argue that he's not psychotic, but he seems to think better of it – or to remind himself that Uriah isn't worth the trouble or the explanation, Uriah isn't sure. 

They make it out of the island. Uriah didn't think he'd be happy to leave the sparkling blue ocean and sandy-haired locals, but as soon as they drive off the bridge at Fort Myers he can't help but let out a little sigh. It feels as if something he hadn't realized was curled around his vocal chords, quietly suffocating him, had uncoiled its tentacles and suddenly left him free to breathe. Andrew gives him a sharp, amused look. 

The change is a bit dizzying, actually, and Uriah obviously isn't the only one who thinks that. Of course Andrew is entirely unfazed as usual, but Quinn presses her nose against the window, squinting as she tries to peer through the dust the wheels raise and over the road. Florida isn't exactly a beautiful state, though, especially after the Naples Massacre; the locals still haven't recovered, and most of the state is barren, populated by dark-eyed men and women whose hair is shorn more closely than most, keeping their heads bowed as they walk under the heavy sun. It truly is hard to imagine that this same sun used to be a symbol of carefree recklessness and a flourishing tourist industry. People stay out of Naples, now. Uriah has never been there himself, tempt the devil and all that, but when Kyle had come back to New York he'd talked of a near-ghost town, where the beaches are covered with heaps of debris and waste so that no one can get to the ocean. 

But Uriah could bet on his life that Quinn knows nothing of that. She doesn't look enthralled, exactly; her expression is a mix of wild, almost feral fear and careful amazement. Her eyes are wide and unblinking, and even from where he is, twisting on the front seat to catch occasional glances of both her and the landscape, it's hard to see more when the eye falls on that intense, carnivorous blue.

"You've never left the island?" Uriah asks, but she doesn't answer, doesn't even look like she's heard him. When he repeats himself and doesn't get much more of a reaction, he gives up. 

Their first stop is in a diner off the road. They haven't been driving that long, but they had breakfast early and then there was all the packing and the preparing to go. Besides, stress makes for hunger, so Uriah badgers Andrew until he agrees that maybe it's a good idea to get lunch before driving through the whole country. It's not that Uriah is bored of driving, but Andrew isn't the most lively conversation partner, and neither is Quinn; at least food will occupy him for a while, and if he gets stuffed he'll be more likely to forget his jittery nerves and his constant, thrumming fear. Maybe he could even convince Andrew to stay the night, and get some sleep. Last night wasn't very restful. 

They understand their mistake as soon as they step out of the car. A man, probably the owner, is standing in front of a sign that proclaims, in sickly green neon, LEON'S BURGERS. His face is leathery and parched and crinkles in surprise when he sees them.

"Hello," he greets when they get out of the car. 

They're standing as though they were in a western, Uriah realizes after a few seconds of silent staring: Andrew has his hands in his pockets, out of which Uriah is reasonably sure he could whip out a few knives and even maybe a gun; Quinn has her pelvis thrusted out, her face fierce; and even Uriah's stance, though he didn't realize it before now, is clearly defensive. Oh god, hey're not even going to make it through one state. That's just great. 

"Hello," he answers, because someone has to. "Can we eat?"

The man seems to hesitate, rocking back on his heels. He's chewing on something, his face contorting rhythmically. It's strangely fascinating. "Sure," he says after a while. He takes a step forward. "'m Robb," he volunteers, holding out a hand at Andrew but still looking warily between Uriah and Quinn.

"Not Leon?"

Robb's head whips back to Uriah. "Nah, Leon was my daddy."

That closes the conversation; Robb leads them inside and cleans a table for them in the middle of the room, even holding out a chair for Quinn. She doesn't thank him, sitting absently with her hands clutching the hem of her dress, but he doesn't seem to mind. In fact, Andrew and her seem to be more similar than Uriah had pegged them at first: they have the same complete disregard for anyone that doesn't exist inside their own privileged circle and the same airy, unconcerned attitude. The two of them eat quietly, undisturbed by the greasy, rheumy-eyed patrons who don't even bother trying to be discreet as they stare. Their only saving grace is that they don't actually ask questions or attempt contact in any way; but Uriah can't find it in him to eat as heartily as he would've weren't he so intently scrutinized. 

Eventually, though, they all go through their burgers and fries. Andrew wipes his mouth primly and Uriah looks just in time to see Quinn flash him a smile, wide and sharp-toothed, over the rim of her glass. They only drink water: Andrew has declared a veto on alcohol until they get to the Hamptons, and though Uriah agrees on principle, he could definitely use some vodka to make this more weird than it is. Because it is weird – so, so very weird. 

By the time they thank Robb and pay him, the patrons seem to have decided they hold no interest after all and have returned to their baseball game, head tipped back to watch as the players exhaust themselves on the grainy screen. Andrew seems faintly amused; he laughs quietly when Uriah starts eating as soon as the company turns their head, as though he thought such an attitude to be the height of delicacy. Quinn reclines in her chair and picks fries from Uriah's plate, dipping them in salad dressing despite Uriah's vehement protestations ("Who does that?" Quinn just shrugs). 

The next leg of the car ride is markedly more relaxed. Though Andrew is still not exactly a big talker, he seems to have gotten the stick partly out of his ass, and he makes reluctant, slightly clipped conversation. Quinn joins in once in a while with her whimsy thoughts, exclaiming about the endlessly yellow landscape they encounter all through Florida. Around five the heat stops beating down on the car and the three of them wind down completely, falling into lazy patterns of conversation. 

Uriah learns more Andrew during that day than he had during the whole of their trip to Florida in the first place. Though he doesn't say it outright, the fact that they've got Quinn with them and are on their way to the Hamptons seems to have reassured him, and he radiates a fierce sort of energy. He tells Uriah that his job is not as gruesome as it sounds like, but doesn't get into it; after that it's all talk about music, women, cinema and the general state of politics and economics. It really is like any other conversation Uriah could have with a friend, and the untold difference – where they're going, what they're doing, the fact that Uriah's life is technically Andrew's and he can do what he wants with it – isn't all that different from the undercurrent tension that occupies any conversation Uriah has with someone who doesn't know that what he does to pay is rent is deal drugs. 

Andrew asks him a little about that. It's liberating, in a way, to talk about it to someone whose occupation is significantly worse, and Uriah can't say he doesn't enjoy it. He has been conscious for a while that his morals are skewed, and in the modern world it's difficult to remember what life and death stand for when humans fall like flies while Mechanics live on for decades. Uriah has always looked at them with envy mixed with a sort of wonder. The few Mechanics he was intimate enough with to ask told him they didn't really think about it. Living forever, as it turns out, isn't all that exciting. Uriah can't say he was all that surprised. After all, he _is_ one of the primary dealers of H54, and what better proof than drugs to drive home the point that everyone eventually gets bored of what they have? 

Andrew isn't exactly the funniest of guys, and he has nothing in common with any of the people Uriah met in his admittedly quite short – but eventful – life. His humor is dry, and his past is full of patches of darkness he won't talk about. Under the age of twenty he refuses to disclose anything about his life, and it makes Uriah wonder what kind of childhood can be so strange or so awful that someone wouldn't even want to remember it. But he doesn't pry; instead he talks about his own family. It wasn't all sunshine and roses either, and he can't say he relishes the memory of leaving the parental home, but it's part of his life. You can't just erase it, can you? Uriah thought he could, at first, and look how that turned out. 

Anyway, Andrew isn't all that bad. He's strange, sure, he's arrogant and haughty and secretive, but Uriah's spent all his life hanging out with junkies and drug dealers. He's used to eccentric people; hell, he likes them. Back home he was bored, so bored: he wanted all that glitter and recklessness, the people with loud voices and louder opinions dancing with no coordination in pools of blue light. He wanted adventure and the big city. This – after all you can't really get a better adventure, can you? 

Quinn seems to agree too. She doesn't exactly get more normal as the day progresses – Uriah honestly has trouble even imagining how that would be, and besides, from what he understands her condition is, well, that – but she sometimes takes part in their conversation with either completely unrelated or curiously accurate remarks, her voice fluty and amused, as though holding on to a private joke none of them can understand. Andrew tolerates her, and after a while Uriah understands that he holds her in a singular regard. That link between them, which apparently has to do with Andrew's mother, and which Uriah thought only Quinn recognized, is a tether between them, and Andrew seems to have for her a strange and careful kind of deference.

The seriousness only returns to them after they leave Florida. They are forced to stop at a rest area by Quinn persistent whining (and a rather comical argument, between two people so arguably mysterious and unusual: "I need to go to the bathroom." "Why didn't you go in that restaurant?" "I didn't want to. It was filthy." "We can't stop every twenty minutes," so on and so forth), and Andrew whips out his laptop from his bag as they wait. He shields it from Uriah's sight, of course, but something he sees seems to alarm him.

"What is it?" Uriah asks. 

Andrew barely turns around, though the slight surprise in his eyes shows that he had, once again, forgotten that Uriah was even there. He really needs to stop doing that. "Nothing."

"Nothing nothing, or nothing something you don't want me to know?"

Andrew clucks his tongue. "None of your business." 

_Your business is my business_ , Uriah thinks about saying, but then figures it would be a little cliché. "Tell me," he says instead. Okay, so he's a bit bored. In his defense, he's been sitting in that car for most of the last week. 

"It doesn't concern you."

Uriah opens his mouth to retort something that will probably be at least ten percent relevant and ninety percent annoying, but Andrew cuts him off by taking out his phone and tapping out a number. He doesn't even glance at Uriah as he gets out of the car. Uriah sticks his nose to the window, because, well, he has nothing else to do; though he knows if he actually gets out and blatantly listens Andrew will probably have his ass, which is not something Uriah is willing to risk. He loves his ass; it's a great ass.

Andrew looks markedly more agitated than usual. He's frowning, and he looks suspicious, his fingers twitching against his thigh in what Uriah is starting to recognize as a sign of frustration. Quinn still isn't back from the bathroom, Uriah notices. Did she decide to make a run for it? She wouldn't go far, with those chicken legs of her, and it's not like she's in top physical form either.

Uriah decides to tell Andrew as soon as he finishes his call, but it drags on. Andrew gets a little sedate, the wrinkle between his eyes smoothing out as his interlocutor talks in his ear. Maybe it's good news. Maybe he doesn't need to kill Nomi for whatever reason, and he's going to hang up and tell Uriah he can go. Though now Uriah can't tell he isn't a little excited about it. It's like... if you're going to go on a mission suicide, best make it big, you know?

Looking at Andrew, Uriah realizes once more that he doesn't look like anything he is. He could pass for a soldier, what with the short hair and nondescript appearance, but even for that there's something too delicate and somewhat fuzzy in his traits, not defined or hardened enough to qualify him as a gun-wielding drone. He does wield guns, though, and rather admirably, from what Uriah's seen – though not much since his weapons of choice seem to be different and somewhat exotic. Uriah wouldn't say no to seeing less of the saw, he's not going to lie. But the point is, the weapons that seem so incongruous when Uriah is imagining them in his hands seem to become an extension of his body as soon as he dons them; the saw whirred, even in the silence, and there was something sharp and ferociously efficacious in the way Andrew handled it, two fingers pressed on the handle. 

Even though he is, in essence, an average-looking man, exactly the type that gets lost easily in a crowd – which Uriah assumes is an advantage for him –, after seeing him cut into that Mechanic's skull it's hard to juxtapose the two together, and it's even harder now that Uriah has travelled with him and ascertained that he is not, in fact, a killer robot, but rather a human being with emotions and even, apparently, a capacity for feelings – though that remains to be proven. It's fascinating, in a way Uriah hasn't found anything truly fascinating since he used to haunt the modern art exhibitions in San Francisco as a teenager, spending long hours roaming the large, white-walled rooms like a ghost. 

He shakes his head to focus his thoughts; Andrew has been keeping silent for almost the whole exchange, standing motionless with the phone stuck to his ear. Then he says a few things, his mouth tight and curt and he hangs up. He walks back into the car, glancing at Uriah in a way that says he's not at all fooled and knows perfectly that Uriah was trying to listen. Uriah shrugs, unconcerned. 

"Where's Quinn?" Andrew asks after a second, putting both his laptop and his phone back in his bag. 

Uriah shrugs again, this time more tightly. "Dunno. I was thinking –"

"Go see what she's doing," Andrew orders. 

"You do know I'm not your servant, right? I mean, isn't that something we discussed?"

Andrew gives him a Look; Uriah decides to report the conversation to another, more appropriate time. Sometimes you've got to pick your battles.

He walks into the rest area. He feels weird poking his head into the ladies' lavatory, so he knocks a few times. "Quinn?" he asks tentatively; then, when no response is forthcoming, a little louder.

A woman storms out of the lavatory and throws him an outraged look, clutching her baby closer to her chest. Uriah takes advantage of the occasion to put his foot in the door and take a rapid glance inside: and who does he see but Quinn, looking blissfully unconcerned and applying lipstick in front of the mirror. 

"Quinn," Uriah says flatly. 

Quinn turns to him, pressing her lips together to even out the lipstick. It's a nice shade, dark burgundy; though it makes her look even more sickly, makes her veins stand out, slightly apparent under the almost-translucent skin. The overall impression is definitely arresting – she looks like a cross between a Mechanic and a small-town zombie. "Is everything okay?"

Uriah nods. "What's taking so long?"

Another woman walks out of the cubicle. Her mouth falls into an o-shape when she sees Uriah and she makes a shooing motion with her hands. "Get out, pervert!"

Uriah does, though not before beckoning Quinn along. "Come on."

Quinn gives him a look like she thinks he's being over-the-top, but she follows him anyway. Uriah is starting to be a little fed-up with people acting superior with him, honestly. What is it with them? A basket case and a murderer, and yet they seem to think their sole mission is to be jerks to him, the unique sane and reasonably cool person in their little group?

"What were you doing in there?" Uriah asks as soon as she's out, his fingers closing around her arm. 

She struggles free. "You know," she says with no sarcasm, only a light quirk of her lips, like she's already forgotten what the question was about, and doesn't really care either way. 

But then, in a flash, as seems to be her habit, her face changes completely. She grabs onto Uriah's arm, her eyes drop to the ground and she starts talking, at the same time very fast and very low. "I was thinking about the Coronation," she says, her voice faraway, "about the Coronation, you remember? You said – I think there were fireworks, but I didn't see the fireworks. Everyone saw the fireworks except me. At the very beginning, you know?" Uriah remembers the way she'd jolted the first time he'd said the word – Coro _na_ tion, the way everyone says it –, like it was something terrible she had been trying really hard to put out of her mind. "I think they set the barn on fire. After the war... not many people left in my mother's house, you know? But they came long before, the Coronation I mean, long before the Coronation. We just kept waiting. It wasn't that bad, that's what my daddy said at the time, the occupation could've been worse, and then it just sort of blew over, and you know I was small, really small... Like a baby I mean, four or five." She gains a slight twang as she talks, a midwestern turn that flattens her vowels and makes the whole stream of words sound strangely nasal. "But that was such a party." She looks up at him, her eyes sparkling. Uriah remembers – such a party that night indeed, he wasn't born yet but his parents told him afterwards, showed him photographs: the best national holiday since the Awaknening, and wasn't that nice? The conquerors throwing a party for those they'd conquered. "Everyone was dancing. There was music, we watched on the TV, when she put on the crown... my mother said something to me, she said, Look at that woman, I know everyone hates her and I do too but you've gotta admit she's got some balls, she's got something. And she was right, you know?" Her eyes cloud over. "It's the other one they never think about, the one in the shadows. That one's the real monster. The others are just –" she rights herself, waves a disdainful hand. She looks sick and exhausted, pathetic in the sleepless junkie way Uriah knows all too well. "The others are nothing compared to her, even Nomi."

Her resentment seems so strong, so ferocious for someone who's as weak as she is, that Uriah gets the sense that she might know her even more personally than he'd suspected. He makes a mental note to ask Andrew about it. Not that he's likely to say anything, but Uriah can try, right? 

"Are you okay?" he asks, for lack of something better to say. 

Quinn looks at him, her eyes hollow. She nods and stumbles out of Uriah's hold, her head still ducked. "Sometimes I just remember."

When they come back to the car Andrew is looking more agitated than Uriah has ever seen him – which, granted, is not much, but still. "Where were you?" he snaps. "Did you get lost on your way to the bathroom?" He slides into the car, slamming his door closed with a mumbled, "Goddammit."

Uriah blinks. "Right."

Quinn doesn't seem to be remotely perturbed by Andrew's bad temper. They drive for another few hours – Uriah offers to take over a few times but Andrew systematically declines, though Uriah doesn't exactly see what damage he could do when Andrew is armed and driving into a wall would make him just as dead as Andrew. But he doesn't complain; he leans against the window and pillows his head in his crossed arms, letting the music Andrew eventually agrees to put on lull him to sleep. 

His dreams are populated with things strange and chaotic, not unlike an acid trip. In one of them the fantastical figure of the queen, Nomi, glides to him, her long red hair billowing behind her. She sneers, her heels clicking on the ground, and kneels next to where Uriah is lying on the ground, terrified, only to murmur – though he has to strain to hear: "I'll burn your heart out," and Uriah can distinguish a figure in the background – a long-limbed creature, in all points identical to Nomi except for her white hair and clothes, a gauzy dress that flutters down to her ankles and sparkles with venomous-looking gems at the collar. She smiles at him, a smile so calculating and terrifying, pervaded with a monster's weakness, the vulnerability borne out of pain and transmogrified into strength, steely and unbending. Uriah opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. _I didn't want to_ , he tries to say, to scream, to save his skin – but who is he without words? He's always been able to speak his way out of bad situations. _I didn't –_

He jerks awake. His head hits the window. "Shit," he says, his voice tight. He turns to Andrew. "What the hell?"

"You were having a nightmare. You were talking; it was annoying." – which Uriah is going to take as an expression of concern, because Andrew is taking to him and Uriah will not be convinced otherwise. Sure, it's going to be a strange friendship, but who cares? Uriah's life has never been on the side of the conventional. 

He shakes his head a few times, trying to put his thoughts in order. He sneaks a glance at the backseat: Quinn is lying curled up on herself, sleeping soundlessly. She doesn't even seem to be breathing, actually, and she looks every bit like the woman Uriah remembers gasping at the first time he saw her, prostrated in her own living-room.

He turns back to Andrew, slumping in his seat. "So what's the plan?" he asks, glancing aimlessly outside. The night has fallen and the sky is beautiful, stricken with the sort of colors that always look unnatural up there, like arctic lights – pink and indigo and a light, unripe green. In fact it looks more like a dawn than it does nightfall. 

"We're going to stop somewhere for the night," says Andrew. 

"Thank god," Uriah sighs. "But after that? What was... I mean, are the plans changing?"

Honestly, he's fishing, because he wants to know what that phone-call was about and if he asks directly there's a hundred and ten percent chance he's going to get shot down. But he seems to have struck a nerve – entirely by chance, apparently – because Andrew tenses up. He doesn't say anything for a few minutes, during which Uriah starts fidgeting and observes the roadsigns. Which is when he notices. 

"Wait," he says. Andrew winces a little. "That's not – we're not going back to New York."

"No," says Andrew. 

"Where _are_ we going? Does that have something to do with that phone call?"

"Change of plans," Andrew says curtly. 

"To what? Didn't we agree that you were telling me what you were doing so I could help you?"

"No. You said that."

Uriah shakes his head, like that's a minor detail. It is. It is! They're going who-knows-the-hell-where and he needs to know why. "Whatever. Where are we going?"

"LA."

The name shocks Uriah a little, resonates low in his insides. It's stupid, but it reminds of home; simply because when he was a kid sometimes he and his parents used to go there in the holidays, because it wasn't that far and they liked the glitz and the glamour. That's probably what sparked his own interest for it, actually. 

"I'm not exactly..." he chews a little on his bottom lip, "welcome back there, actually. Bit of a persona non grata, if you catch my drift."

For a second Andrew looks like he's going to get pissed, but he just shrugs. "I don't exactly plan on parading the town. You'll be fine."

"Okay." Uriah only waits a few seconds before going back to it: "So why are we going to LA?"

"You're unbearable."

"But you love me." Andrew glares at him. "Okay, you don't love me _yet_. But it's going to come, you'll see. Even murderers love me. Murderers love me _especially._ "

"Shut up." 

"Why are we going to LA?"

Andrew gives what could be misconstrued as a smile, if you really wanted to. "You never give up, do you?"

"One of my many qualities. Just tell me, get it over with. You'll see, I'm a mine of useful ideas."

Andrew snorts. "I don't doubt it."

"I helped you with Quinn, didn't I?"

Andrew's eyes get a little fierce. "I think she made the choice herself."

Uriah puts his hands up in sign of peace. "You'll feel lighter, I promise."

Andrew looks like he might say something horribly sappy along the lines of _don't promise something you can't guarantee, kid_ , like in one of those old cowboy movies, but he just sighs. "I guess I could tell you," he says eventually, after a protracted silence where he looks into the yellowish trace his headlights leave on the highway. "I was talking to Cecil Henderson on the phone."

"Cecil – you mean Cecil Henderson, the Minister of Finances?"

Andrew's lips quirk up, like he's satisfied that Uriah's at least been following national politics while he was running his little business. "The one and only."

"What did he want to talk to _you_ for?"

Andrew stiffens. "It appears he got my contact information by some way or other, and it didn't take him long to figure out what I do, and that I was the author of the Mechanic Muders." He purses his lips at the name, like it's supremely tasteless. It is, to a certain measure – like all the names the tabloids give to crimes, complete with the half-assed mythology and public fear mixed with veneration. They made a big deal of it in the beginning – a killer that targeted only Mechanics, and high-placed ones at that (though most Mechanics are powerful, so that wasn't really relevant), that was emotionless and cool, cut into their brains and took their brand with as a trophy. In some underground circles he's still a revolutionary icon, and they adore a hooded, faceless figure that Uriah is now capable to appreciate looks nothing like Andrew, with broad shoulders and a long, gleaming knife. "Anyway, he appears to be – how should I put it – displeased with our fearsome leader, and he heard of my plan to eliminate her." This, Uriah can tell, even though Andrew isn't looking at him but at the road, his eyes fixed and unblinking, is alarming to him: whatever his reasons are, this plan is important to him and the fact that someone other than him knows about it frightens him. "He informed me that Nomi is going to be landing at LAX in a week exactly, and is going to benefit from less security than usual. He informed me that he sent a team of operatives to help us put a plan into place and execute it."

"How do you know it's not a trap?"

"I don't. But I know that if it turns out to be true, it's the best opportunity we have. It it isn't, Henderson obviously knows of my whereabouts and will have no trouble figuring out where I am going or how to get to me. If he wanted me dead I'd wager I would already be lying somewhere in a morgue. Nomi isn't exactly pleased with my... extra-curricular activities," he says with a thin smile. 

"So what is this, a conjuration?"

"I guess you could say that," Andrew agrees. 

Uriah buries himself into his seat. It's time they stop somewhere, seriously. His ass feels like it's going to fall off. "So what about that team? Are they –"

"No," Andrew says shortly. "I don't work with Mechanics." He says it with a look that suggests he only has one kind of encounters with Mechanics, and it's the kind where they end up dead. O – kay then. 

"Well," Uriah says; he can feel his eyelids dropping closed again, but he doesn't particularly want to get another one of those strange dreams. The horizon is full of lights, headlights and the now fully-dark sky, dotted in places with stars. " _Alea jacta est_ , I guess."

Andrew's unusually soft laugh, made almost sentimental with tiredness, accompanies him into the darkness of sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

**4.**

From the beginning, it feels wrong. 

There's a law somewhere, in some fucking book that rules the universe, that this kind of things can never be easy. It doesn't have to be a catastrophe; but something _always_ goes wrong, be it a strap on a backpack or an exit blocked by a cleaning lady. This, though – this has been going completely flawlessly since the five of them put a foot in the airport, dressed as casually as possible. There is Andrew, of course, who Uriah is sticking close to because you never know when you may need a serial killer in this kind of situation, and then the three people of Henderson's team, Tara, a Native ex-Marine specialized in explosives, Kieron, their master hacker, a surprisingly beefy guy with too many tattoos to count, and Henley, the resident planner, who looks so ordinary Uriah has trouble remembering his face from one encounter to the other. According to them, he wanted to 'do this on the down low,' whatever that means. Uriah is pretty sure nothing what they're doing is the exact contrary of 'down low'. 

Uriah glances at the arrival board nervously, fingering his micro on his wrist, under his sleeve. He's usually more professional than this, has made countless dangerous drops in crowded places and hasn't gotten caught once (well – not more than once, at least), but there's something about this that just rubs him the wrong way. The three Stooges are nice enough (Andrew had looked at him blankly when he'd made that reference, there's definitely nothing to take from this one) but if something goes South there's no way they can all escape the bulk of Nomi's security, especially given how she rarely travels with less than a full detail since, as Uriah now knows thanks to Andrew's generous information-giving, she was attacked two months ago by a lone sniper in New York. Bit suicidal, if you want Uriah's opinion (Andrew didn't. Surprise).

"Stop fidgeting," Andrew's dry voice crackles in his com.

Uriah jumps. "How -"

"I'm on the other side of the room, you moron. Why don't you just scream what we're here for while you're at it?"

Uriah bristles. He's a professional. He opens his cellphone, pretending to talk into it. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"Oh my god," Andrew deadpans. He's actually pretty funny, once you get that stick out his ass; pity most of it is at Uriah's expense. "Call it off, guys, the newbie's got a bad feelings. Wait, don't tell me – you had a premonitory dream, too?"

The whole team laughs. Uriah huffs. "Well, don't say I haven't warned you when everything goes to shit."

Andrew is probably on his way to delivering his own witty repartee when Henley's voice rises in the coms. "Here they are," she warns; Uriah's gaze immediately focuses on the West area of the airport, where he can see Nomi's plane landing through the glass.

"Whew," he whistles between his teeth. "She doesn't exactly travel cheap, does she?"

The rest of the team pay no attention to him. Uriah sees Andrew make a casual-looking sign across from him, and Tara files quietly to the reception area, trailing a black suitcase behind him. Kieron follows soon after, duly equipped with press credentials and a camera – fake, Uriah knows, and filled with a broken-down AKA 47 which, according to him, he can assemble in twenty seconds flat. Uriah didn't ask for a demonstration; he's scary enough even without weapons.

The foreboding doesn't leave Uriah, but he follows the plan like he was told. He isn't usually one for this type of expeditions, but even he knows that it's enough that one of them doesn't do exactly what they're supposed to for it all to go awry, and he'd rather it didn't. The Militia isn't known for its tendency to be merciful. He tugs his sleeve back down and heads for Andrew. Consciously or not, they've left most of the heavy lifting to the others. Uriah suspects it's because Andrew doesn't entirely trust Henderson, and Uriah can't really fault him for that, even though Andrew's distaste seems to come from pure hatred of the whole species. It'd been a long time since Uriah had met people like him, usually the extremists tend to live in the countryside. Either way, it's common knowledge that Henderson is kind of a snake. He even looks the part: skinny and taut, with long shiny black hair that he usually wears in sleek ponytail that brushes his ankles, always wearing three-thousand dollar suits and looking shiftier than should be allowed. Now that he thinks about it, it doesn't exactly surprise Uriah that he would engineer this kind of coup, even though to what purpose he doesn't want to think. Andrew must know that their plans for the future are most likely diametrically opposed – he's protecting himself, that's all. 

Uriah positions himself near one of the wider exits, keeping guard from under a well-worn edition of an old thriller, something about noir New York and a femme fatale. It makes him think about Thema, though why, he has no idea – she's about as far from a femme fatale as they come – and he laughs a little into his sleeve, amused. The woman next to him throws him a dirty look.

Nomi's security detail starts spilling into the airport, sticking close to the glass wall. They're far from inconspicuous, with their sunglasses, black suits and the obvious bulge of their guns under the pressed lapels. A fan of disguise, Uriah can't help scoffing to himself; the woman scoots farther from him, tugging her kid by the hand. He searches Andrew in the thick crowd. Honestly, his role here isn't exactly tremendous: the most of his job in this operation consisted in bribing the airport employees, which he did well – and fast – and finding them somewhere to stay through his numerous connections. You can say what you want about the drug business, it's usually friendly. Now the only thing he has to do is wait for this to either succeed or go south, get them out of here and hightail out of the state before someone figures them out. But Uriah hasn't been thinking about the repercussions of what they're about to do – in fact, he's been avoiding thinking about it. He's fine with it on a conceptual level, Nomi deserves more than death for all she's done, but – well, without her, everything's going to go batshit, there's no two ways about it. Uriah isn't exactly relishing the thought.

He glances back at the airport, checking the team's positions. Kieron's mingling with the journalists, talking with one of them while keeping an eye on Nomi's detail. The cord won't be hard to go through, but they're counting on the distraction Tara has to provide afterwards to catch Nomi unawares. They wouldn't have a chance against the detail alone, Uriah knows – they're highly trained, most of them Mechanics, and most of them have made it their life duty to protect Nomi. This is how this kind of job works. Tara is lounging against the wall, a few paces from the detail, keeping an eye on Nomi's progress in the hospital aisle. Uriah can't see Andrew, but if everything's going according to plan as it seems to he should be only a few paces away, in Uriah's blind spot, monitoring the whole thing. There are toilets in that area, and he needs to talk without being disturbed or seen. Uriah can't help but thinking it's better he's not heavily involved in the action. You never know, with those government types – it's been Uriah's motto for years that they always screw you over, and this crew, friendly or not, hasn't convinced him of the contrary.

He thinks about Quinn, back at the hideout. She'd made a striking picture in the morning light, and it's the only thing Uriah can remember before they left, her face in the light of dawn, sickly and strangely peaceful. "So you don't need me then?" she'd asked, smiling a prophet's smile over the rim of her coffee mug. 

Andrew has looked at her, face unreadable as always. "Sorry. We'll take you back to Captiva as soon as we can."

Quinn had flipped her hair back. One of her fingers had caught in the knotted-up blond, and she'd tugged on it with surprising vivacity, considering the hour of the day and her ever-sickly condition. "It's okay. Don't get killed."

"We won't," Uriah had spoken up. 

Quinn's eyes had settled on him, floating, shining from the inside. "Don't make promises you can't keep," she'd whispered in the still pregnant darkness, and then Andrew had led Uriah away and Uriah had only been able to look at her ghost-like silhouette gradually disappearing in the overhead window. Maybe she was really waving them goodbye; maybe it was just Uriah's imagination. 

"Everyone going okay on your side?" Henley's voice tears him out of his reverie. 

He casts a look around him: the exit path is clear, no one seems to have been alerted of their presence. "Clear," he says. 

After that there's a lot of silence. That's one of the things that makes him comfortable about their team: the way they walk, three killers with ballerina feet. At least junkies stumble and signal their presence, unfailingly, by knocking over some trinket or other and then looking up with those deer-in-the-headlights eyes, wide and uncomprehending. But those, Andrew included, seem to do everything in silence, moving among the crowds like feline and carrying with the silent death. It doesn't sit right with Uriah, that's all. It makes his skin crawl.

He bears it, though, because – well, because this is Nomi and Uriah, like everyone on the planet that isn't one of theirs, has some kind of deep-buried hatred for her and her kind. It's hard to forget having been colonised, and when do things like the things they did to Quinn – Uriah doesn't know what that is exactly, but he's seen enough to understand that it's probably some particularly horrible brand of torture – there's just no reason not to want to boot them out. Nomi's been reigning over them the whole time, Uriah's seen her too, resplendent on the TV screen with the shadow of her sister at her back, talking about liberation and economic golden age. He's listened to her promises and he's seen his parents believed, has even believed a few of them himself – and now, well, now's the time for retribution. It doesn't mean he doesn't want to know what exactly is Andrew's beef with her, why it's so personal and why it seems the be the only thing driving him; it just means that he's in. It can be his revenge too.

It happens fast. Tara reaches into her suitcase, flings two cases of tear gas on the ground. The detail lunges forward, trying to catch her, but she takes the gun from the inside of her jacket. Two shots crack in the air and the first two guards fall backwards, probably not dead but knocked out for the moment. Uriah acts out the panic with the rest of the crowd, careful not to let them sweep him up in their frenzy, and continues to survey the progress of the crew. Kieron says a word to the journalists, follows them to the side where they've all whipped out their cameras and are busy documenting the whole thing. He's not going to move for a while, if everything goes right. 

But it doesn't – of course it doesn't. Tara's progress is hindered with one guard who's apparently more resistant than the others, or has managed to shield his face from the gas. It's specifically engineered for Mechanics, strong enough to knock a horse; Tara's got her mask over her mouth and nose, a gun in one hand and her backpack in the other. She's supposed to plant two bombs to take out the rest of the detail – Uriah's pretty sure she's got one of them covered, but Henley's the one with the remote and Tara is too close to the detonation point for now not to be taken out too. The aim is not to let the detail regroup before they have a chance to act on the distraction caused by the gas and get to Nomi. If they can't take her out right now – they'll need to make sure she's dead, anyway, and Uriah's reasonably sure Andrew wants to take care of it himself – they'll subdue her and take her away. The one ingredient that can't be disposed with is the most volatile: speed.

Andrew clucks his tongue in the comm. "Do I need to move?" he asks Henley.

Henley doesn't say anything for a few seconds. Uriah tries to act casual, not that anyone's looking with the mayhem going on. The alarms are blaring, security is trying to get involved in the scuffle without getting knocked down by the gas, like the first fools that stepped into the fumes, and both the local police and the Militia are going to be here sooner rather than later. They need to do something – act now, or risk to lose their window. 

Uriah doesn't realize he's holding his breath until Henley speaks again, his voice cold and composed. "No. Don't do anything; Kieron, you help her. We'll move in to seize Nomi as soon as she's clear. Understood?"

"Wilco," Kieron says in the comm. Apparently he's picked on the military lingo, Uriah notices idly. "I'm going in."

He shoves the other journalists out of his way, opening the camera case. He wasn't lying about his talents, Uriah remarks to himself as the rifle emerges between his hands and he fires a few shots at the glass, making the guards turn sharply in his direction. The distraction gives Tara the opportunity to struggle out of her attacker's grasp and she puts him down in a few swings, dealing him a sharp kick in the stomach and another in the neck. The Mechanics have a thick skin, though; it takes about ten times what it takes to take down a normal human to get them down, and even then, killing them is a whole other business. Which, in fact, is exactly why H50 would've made Uriah such a good profit – human drugs work nothing on them, and there's just no silver lining, everyone gets tired of being what they are at some point, humans and machines alike.

The scuffle devolves into gunfire, and Uriah slides closer to the exit, in case they need to hightail out of the place. The part of the convoy's that's got Nomi tight inside her own private detail has stopped in the middle of the aiport, probably waiting for the danger to be clear. They can't go back into the plane, since it's already rolled back to the hangar, and there's no way out behind them, the back of the airport is an impasse. As for continuing ahead, Uriah is going to wager none of Nomi's lapdogs is stupid enough to thing they can make it through his haze of smoke, especially with all these guns blazing. It would make a great headline, though: President Taken Out by Stray Bullet. Ha. 

He's lost sight of Tara, but she recalls herself to his attention by panting into the comm, "It's fine. The second one's in place."

Henley makes a noise of agreement. "Okay. Kieron, you follow her lead, I want you two out of there in two minutes. I have to activate them sooner rather than later, either way we won't have an exit route."

Uriah would be inclined to agree: from the corner of his eye he can spot the door behind him and there are police cars pulling up, surrounding the building. They could probably still make it out with while they're organizing their forces, especially given the amount of panicked civilians spilling out the building and the fact that most of the local police officers are human, at least according to the research they did for the operation. But if they wait too long it won't be possible anymore, and once they enter the justice system there's no way they're getting out, especially with Nomi's body lying in LAX. 

"Andrew? Are we good?" he can't help but asking, and Andrew's annoyed approval is a relief, despite himself. Yes, he's a good assurance in all situations, but Uriah would lie if he said he didn't like him, in some strange and twisted way, just like he likes Quinn and her crazy eyes. 

(Could he even go back to New York now, settle back in his apartment and go back to being a small-time dealer for a handful of desperate souls? Probably not. He was a kid like everyone, dreamed of adventure and heroes and noble missions – and sure, maybe this isn't as noble as he thought it would be, maybe the company is mismatched and mysterious and regularly insulting, but it's as close as he's going to get and Uriah's the type to jump headfirst into this kind of things. The adrenalin coursing through his veins reminds him of the first time he ran away from his parents' house at fifteen; a feeling of having nothing to lose, of being light and free and powerful. No, he wouldn't come back. Isn't that what he said? _I'm in_. He meant it.)

He's about to say something sappy and frankly embarrassing when Henley's voice resounds in the comm, stripped of its customary calm: "Something's going on," she says. "Kieron? Tara?"

The silence is ominous, and the only thing Uriah can think is _I was right, I was right_ , and the police is swarming outside, striding towards the building. Uriah looks down at his watch, then back up at the smoke, which has thickened. Shots ring again, this time one, two, three and four, then the explosion. Uriah isn't all that familiar with bombs, his kind tend to stick more with handguns and the like, and he's never dealt in meth – too dangerous, ironically; he looks. The flames crackle and leap outwards, and everyone in the immediate vicinity is thrown to the ground face first. Guns tumble out of hands, a pregnant scent of blood and charred flesh rises; Uriah is pretty sure that if he looked close enough he could see some severed limbs, but honestly he doesn't want to. 

Henley is still shouting in the comm, calling Kieron and Tara's name. Andrew isn't saying anything. In the mayhem around him, Uriah starts running, though he isn't exactly sure towards what. "We have to get out of here," he calls on the comm, not bothering to pretend to be talking on the phone anymore. "We have to leave."

Andrew agrees, and there is a mess of noises on his end, but Henley won't budge. "We can't leave them," she says. Uriah hears a band, and when he turns around he sees the bathroom door fly open. She emerges, holding her gun high and clear. "I'm going to get them," she says determinedly.

"You're going to get killed," Andrew interrupts icily. Uriah can spy at least one police officer who's seen Henley and is walking towards her, drawing their own gun and speaking in their comm, probably calling for back-up. Henley can take one, probably can even take five of them, but more? She's going to be swarmed. 

"We're leaving," Andrew starts again. Still running, Uriah sees him approaching, walking quickly, his hand in his jacket, where Uriah knows he keeps at least one gun and his knife. It's probably the first time Uriah's seen him looking agitated – his forehead is barred by a deep wrinkle and his eyes are black, thunderous. "Either you leave with us or -"

But he doesn't have time to finish. Before the police can get a hold of Henley, she shoots the man who'd seen her first in the chest. His comm falls to the ground with his body, slack, the blood pouring from the hole in his chest in a small pool on the ground. Nomi's guard rises up behind Henley, a silent wall of black silhouettes, and Uriah surges up to yell something, warn her, but Andrew's hand on his chest keeps him from doing anything. Through the finally clearing smoke, Uriah spies the lithe but powerful form of Nomi, sitting on one of the hospital bench, her detail untouched. There are bodies on the ground in front of her, and she nudges one of them with her foot, making a little disgusted face. Bile rises in Uriah's throat.

"We have to go," Andrew tells him, a hand on his wrist, but Uriah can't think. He lets himself he dragged out, and after a final glance at Henley being surrounded by Nomi's guard, he finally turns his face away and runs, head down, trying not to think. He runs and runs and runs, concentrating on the rhythm of his heart. They pass a gaggle of police officers which they fool into thinking they're civilians; when they're finally spotted it only takes a short scuffle before the officers are down and they're getting to the car. The tires make a screeching sound on the ground. Uriah addresses a mental thank you to Henley for thinking about fake plates and a disposable car; Andrew's would have been much too easily recognizable.

His head tumbles over his knees as soon as they swerve on the road, and he can't help but regurgitate everything he's eaten in the last twenty-four hours, the sour bile burning the walls of his throat as he does. Andrew makes a noise of distaste. "For God's sake. Couldn't you wait for that shit?"

Uriah wipes his mouth with his sleeve and rests his head against the cool glass of the window. It's slightly open at the top, and the wind is whooshing in noisily, cold like a slap in the face. "Sorry. Sorry, I -"

Andrew signals him to shut up. "It doesn't matter. What happened?"

"They had to know. There's no other way, it's – they had to know."

Andrew's face is livid, his teeth ground so tightly together Uriah wouldn't be surprised if one of them popped out. "I can't believe this. I _knew_ it. It's that bastard Henderson."

Uriah shakes his head. "No, his team didn't know, you saw them -"

Andrew barks a mirthless laugh. "What, you think he wouldn't betray his team? Then you know nothing. There's all crows, him and his kind, they're fucking monsters. They wouldn't _hesitate_ to throw their own mothers to the wolves."

Uriah thinks about explaining to him what he probably already knows, that the Mechanic concept of family is a little more complicated than that, but another wave of nausea hits him and he clamps his teeth shut, trying to fight it back. He inhales deeply through his nose, regretting it when the bitter smell of vomit hits his nostrils.

"It doesn't make any sense," Andrew is saying, his hands squeezing the wheel so tightly his joints are white. He throws a quick look backwards. "Well, at least we haven't got any police on our heels," he says sourly. 

"Look," Uriah says when he's regained his breath, "it doesn't make any sense that Henderson talked is the one who talked to her. He wouldn't have anything to gain – his own team are the ones who were on the front lines, he had to know we wouldn't get caught. What's in it for him?"

Andrew slaps the wheel angrily. "What do I know? He could've wanted to get into Nomi's favors. For all we know he just did it for the pleasure of messing with us, and when we go back there's going to be a whole detail waiting for us back at the house." His eyes widen. "Shit! The house."

He digs his cell phone out of his back pocket and throws it to Uriah. "Call Quinn. Try to get her to say if there's anyone back there. Don't spook them, okay?"

Uriah nods shakily. His hands are trembling when he punches the number in. It rings a few times, and with every long note Uriah can feel his heart rate increasing. Eventually Quinn picks up. "Yes?"

"Quinn? Are you okay? Is there anyone in there? Say something... say something about," Andrew makes an angry gesture at him, "something about planes if they're detaining you."

Quinn laughs. "There's no one here, Uriah. What happened? Did you get her?"

Her hilarity throws Uriah off for a second. It shouldn't surprise her, how desensitized she is to this kind of things: yesterday she'd said something about how Asta used to treat them back at the Mansion, and most of it are things Uriah would be glad to never think about again. "No, something – something went wrong. You have to pack. Wait for us inside. We'll get you." He hangs up before she can answer. 

Silence falls back over them. "We're leaving, right?" 

Andrew keeps his eyes focused on the long strip of asphalt, and for a second, quick and flashing, he looks extraordinarily old; then he shakes it off and nods slowly. "Yeah," he says without looking at Uriah. "We're leaving."

*

Quinn folds herself in the backseat, still laughing with the corner of her mouth. "I like this," she says, talking to no one in particular, her eyes straying in the direction of the window. She can't see much, Uriah thinks idly; the night is darker than it's ever been since they've started this, a velvety blackness that seems to shush everything down to a careful silence. "Where are we going now?"

Andrew has a gesture of impatience. "I don't know."

He really doesn't seem to know. They drive more or less aimlessly for a few hours, with the sole purpose of getting out of the city. The lights greet them on their way out, bright and gaudy, then the anonymous swarrm of the highway. The radio crackles information about the attempted assassination. Uriah listens with one ear, catching words in haphazard order, _conjuration... high-end connections... life of our fearless leader..._ Andrew doesn't shut it off.

"We were right," Uriah says after a while. "She knew."

Andrew nods. "I wonder what they're going to do to him," he says tonelessly. He glances back at Uriah, his eyes more honest than Uriah has ever seen them. "Henderson, I mean."

Uriah shrugs. "It's probably not going to be pretty."

They don't broach the subject of Henderson's team. It's useless to talk of the dead after they're dead, Uriah knows that. Like everyone whose life has known its own bumps, he has learned that the dead, once they can't talk anymore, must be buried quickly and with efficacy, and that ghosts, when they arise, can only ever be malevolent. The drug scene is good at looking cheerful from the outside, but Uriah knows where the rot starts, feeds the monster; there have been countless ODs that he helped sweep under the rug, and watch their families drift away, aghast with grief, the friends pale-faced and more hungry than usual for the pills that help forget. Uriah wonders if they had families, maybe kids – then he lets their faces start to drift away. He'll forget. He's good at it. 

It's a long time before Andrew speaks up again. Quinn has been humming what sounds like a lullaby under her breath, and the need to sleep is overwhelming, but every time he starts nodding off something shakes Uriah up, maybe the guilt and maybe the sharp remembrance of the sound of bullets against glass, the strong odor of burning flesh. He's not used to that much upfront violence, is the truth. Quinn seems to be the less shaken up of the three of them, ironically enough.

Eventually Andrew drives the car off the highway and onto a rest area. Most of the lights are off, only a timid glow from the entrance area, where a lone employee is sweeping the floor, dancing slowly to a beat only she can hear. Uriah feels tired, all of a sudden, tired to the center of his bones, like he rarely is. He searches for the reason why he's here and can't find it, only a bound, strong and nonsensical, tying him to this man he doesn't know, whose goal largely escapes him.

He doesn't startle when Quinn's hand finds the nape of his neck. "It's hard, isn't it?" she says under her breath, tender and a little mocking. Uriah wonders if he'll ever be able to figure her out. 

He nods. Quinn's fingers twine around his neck, strangely anchoring, and Uriah leans into it. He knows she won't lean in to embrace him, is too skittish and easily scared for that, and he feels almost okay with it. Maybe he can just hang in there until he finds some strength – who knows.

"What do we do know?" he asks after a while. His eyes are burning but he won't cry, probably can't. He rubs his fingers into his sockets.

"I'm not giving up."

"I know. So, what are we doing?"

For a second, Andrew seems to hesitate. He takes a breath through his nose. "You don't want to go home?" he asks, not looking at Uriah. "You won't tell. You can take a plane, you'll be in New York by noon."

Uriah gives a choked-off laugh. "Nah. Who would I be if I didn't see this through?"

"An intelligent man," Andrew says sharply. 

"That's what I'm saying. Don't want to get old before my time." Behind them, Quinn sighs musically. She tugs her sleeves down on her hands, and when Uriah looks back at her she's shaking her head almost fondly. "So what do we do? Do you have a plan B?"

"I always have a plan B," Andrew says, but he doesn't continue. He digs in his bag for cigarettes, takes out an old, crumpled pack, which he presents to Uriah and Quinn in turn. They each take one, light it with cupped hands, the flame lighting up their tired faces in bursts, making their palms translucent with red fire. They spill out into the night, the smoke trailing after them. Quinn leans close to Uriah against the car, but doesn't let their shoulders touch; Andrew is the solitary one, as always, looking up and exhaling the smoke in long white stripes. "I guess we're going back to the Hamptons," he says tiredly. "This was a mistake."

Uriah nods. He doesn't say anything for a while, and then, "I know someone in San Francisco. She can help us."

Andrew shakes his head no. "We don't need anyone. We didn't even need you, you're just -"

"I know. But you've seen what happened as well as I did, and we need backup. Someone who can fight if we need to."

Andrew throws his half-smoked cigarette on the ground and grinds it under his heel. The embers go black. "How do we know the first thing your friend is going to do isn't to go tell the police everything about us? We're probably felons by now – well, more than we already were."

Uriah smirks. "She's not exactly a friend of the law either. Look, she's one of the best fighters I know. She can hack any computer you put in front of her, and she's loyal. She'll help us."

"There's no 'us'," Andrew snaps. Well, he's recovered then. 

But Uriah just laughs it off. He knows better now, after all that happened. "You've got to face the obvious now, chief. I'm afraid there is."

He puts a companionable hand on Andrew's shoulder, but Andrew shakes it off irritably. "Give you friend a call," he says, stalking away. "We'll visit her in the morning."

Uriah nods. He walks Andrew walk away in the night. His silhouette, a taunt leanness in black, melds quickly in the shadows and it leaves Uriah only with the thought of who he is, the square cut of his jaw and a sense of pervading darkness that is bound to follow a man who kills with such ease and skill. For a short second Uriah regrets, with an aching and almost suffocating strength of feeling, not taking him up on his offer – he could have slept in his own bed tomorrow night, what a strange idea now. But he remembers his fondness for mystery, and there is something intoxicating about that man and his web of secrets. 

He jumps when Quinn's shoulder finally touches his own. She smiles with the corner of her mouth. Her cigarette is still lit and the gleam reflects in her eyes, giving them a predatory gleam. For the first time since Uriah's met her, she looks powerful. Not beautiful, not prophetic, not pure: powerful. It fades in a flash, before Uriah can ask about it.

"You wondering about him?" she asks. Her voice seems to swivel up with the smoke, dissolving in the sharp night air. 

Uriah nods, tapping his own cigarette so that the ashes fall at his feet. 

Quinn buries closer to him, smacks her lips together. "Don't get too close," she says distractedly. "He's dangerous."

Uriah turns sharply over to her. "How do you know? Did he say something?"

Quinn laughs. "He doesn't need to. Men like him..." she laughs, but it's hollow, rings loud and uncomfortable in the immense emptiness that surrounds them, "well. You know."

Uriah doesn't, but something, whatever it is, keeps him from asking. When he glances over at her again, Quinn's closed her eyes, and with them the source of that strange premonitory power; her head rolls onto Uriah's shoulder, her hair splaying like a bond fan on his jacket. Uriah sighs another lungful of white smoke. 

*

The dawn is just spreading in the sky as they roll into San Francisco, pinkish with hues of indigo like a turned-over laundry. The sight, combined with the lack of sleep and food for the last few hours, makes Uriah feel vaguely sick. In another contradiction – what he's now starting to consider as routine -, Quinn seems the most awake of the three of them, her nose turned up and humming at the brisk chill of the morning.

The streets are more or less deserted, populated only by a handful of premature runners in bright attires, the rubber of their sneakers squeaking in the silence. Andrew's bleary eyes gloss over them like he doesn't see them, and he follows Uriah's decisions without second-guessing them, with a trust that is no doubt more a result of desperation and sleep deprivation than any sort of firm belief in the reliability of Uriah's decisions. As for Uriah, he's feeling strangely desensitized; only the humming vibration running underneath his skin tells him how much he's really afraid of seeing Thema again, though it's not fear, not really – more a preparation for the surprise he knows is going to jolt through him when he sees her face again and becomes reacquainted with the peculiar way she moves, talks – to _him_. 

"You're sure she can be trusted?" Andrew asks eventually as they reach the house, strangely superfluous.

Uriah answers anyway. "Yes," he says, only half a lie. She could be trusted last time he saw her, or at least that's the impression he got from her. Will she want to trust him? That's the real question. 

Andrew stops the car. Uriah doesn't get out immediately, reclines in his seat, surveying the house. It's not what he expected – he remembers thinking when she programmed the address into his phone, years ago; he thought of her as living in a quiet apartment over the city, one of those vertiginously tall buildings San Francisco doesn't really have, now that he thinks about it. He thought of it as full of wires, messy and organized following a code only she could understand. It was a romantic guess, of course, and he'd more or less disentangled himself from this idealizing part of his personality over time, but for some reason he'd always kept that idea for her, probably to keep something, because otherwise he would have been at a loss to imagine her anywhere else. Now he's slightly put upon: her house is white and non-descript, with a small garden and peeling blue metallic shutters. Anyone could be living here, and in fact – it occurs to him like a flash – she might have left already. Her lifestyle isn't that different from his, she's a nomad at the very core – who's to say she hasn't packed her bags and left this place a long time ago, and the person who's going to answer will be a dyed-blond unknown with a cat nosing around her ankles? 

He takes a breath. "I'll go in," he says to Andrew without looking at him, "I'll call you if she's here."

Andrew nods, and Uriah takes the momentum of the small movement to open the door and get out. The morning wind slaps him in the face, rasping its dying wheeze against his skull, but it wakes him up and he walks to the door, up the three steps. He knocks. 

He doesn't realize how loud his heart is beating (and say he's always thought himself such a spontaneous, smooth bastard) until the door opens a sliver. "What do you want?" a voice says, but it's _her_ voice – something in his chest ripens and bursts. 

"Thema," he says. 

Her face – well, half her face, an eye, dark brown and hard, and her thick lips, tightly set together – appears in the sliver. Surprise registers on her face, then irritation. "What are you doing here," she hisses, "do you know what time it is?"

He doesn't. His head swims with the strangeness of her face, here, now, and he can't find his words. "Thema -"

She slams the door in his face.

*

After reflexion, he explains to Andrew as they sit in a small coffee-shop a few paces from Thema's house, maybe knocking at her door at five in the morning wasn't the best way to ensure her cooperation. Andrew laughs sourly at him, and Quinn almost snorts her disgusting mocha-whatever up her nostrils when she laughs. 

"You have a way with women," she says; for some reason she seems to be getting more awake and conscious of herself the further they get from Captiva. Or the coast – maybe she doesn't like the sea. 

Uriah shrugs, unrepentant, and they agree to try their luck again in a few hours. In the meantime Andrew makes plans in his organizers, talking in low whispers with Quinn, who is leaning away from him, back on her elbows. Their dynamic is a strange back and forth which, curiously, seems to be working.

When they go back to the house Uriah is marginally more prepared and, more importantly, awake. He knocks at the door. This time, it opens wide after a few minutes, revealing the – glorious – sight of Thema in a wife-beater and jogging pants, a few tattoos Uriah doesn't recognize peeking from her neckline. She sighs. "I hoped you were a bad dream," she says, and she lets him in. 

He lets his eyes stray around him as he surveys the inside of the house. Well, he was wrong, that's for sure – so much for the mess, everything here is spartan and clean, almost disappointingly square. Uriah would bet anything that her arsenal is packed somewhere close, but he doesn't ask – he wants a favor, after all, better get into her good graces. 

She leads him to the kitchen, makes herself a cup of coffee and doesn't offer one but slides it over the counter so he can catch it. It's warm in his palms. He watches her pour sugar in her mug, trying to find all the things that changed about her in one encompassing look, and fails.

She takes a sip. "What do you want?"

"Charming welcome. I have to say, I expected more decorum, I -"

She gives him a look, _cut it out_. He smiles, tries to make it charming, to show he's a little nervous after all. She was always an intimidating woman. "I need to ask you something."

"A favor?"

He grimaces. "Not really. Well – yes. But -"

"Why is it so important that you have to wake me up in the middle of the night for it?" she asks again.

"Sorry about that. Jet-lag, we've been driving for a while."

"Who's we?"

He takes a few gulps of coffee to give himself courage, doesn't even mind when it scalds his throat. She makes it well – strong. "Me and my – friends. By the way, do you mind if I invite them in? They're part of what I want to ask you."

She sighs, rubbing a finger between her eyes. "Tell me first."

"I want you to join on an operation."

"What kind of operation?" she asks, instead of reminding him she has no reason to trust him and, in fact, plenty not to trust him, for which he is eternally grateful.

"The dangerous kind."

"I don't -"

"I'm not stupid." And he listens to gossip. She is. "I know you're still in the business."

She doesn't seem even vaguely bashful at the attempted lie, or unfazed that he didn't believe her. "Mm. Not your kind of business, though."

Drugs, she means. "Fair enough." He shakes his head. "This isn't about that. It's something else."

"You're branching out?"

 _I was kidnapped by a Mechanic killer and then roped into helping him try to commit regicide_ , he doesn't say. "Kind of. We need muscle, and someone smart. I was thinking of you for the two-in-one package." Okay, so maybe he could've worded that a little more gracefully. He's tired. 

She laughs, for the first time since he stepped into the house. It makes him want to take a step backwards, blinded by the sudden emergence of her milk-white teeth. "You still know how to talk to a woman," she mocks. 

He gives a fake-modest shrug, _what can you do_. "So, can I bring them in now?"

She waves a vague hand. "Why not."

He puts the mug back on the counter and bounds minutely out of the house to call Andrew and Quinn in. As he watches them extract themselves from the car, he tries to look at them through Thema's eyes: a disheveled, sickly-looking girl (from what Thema knows about him: an addict) and a surprisingly neat-looking man with dark eyes and a close haircut, dressed all in black and looking too serious for his own good. Okay, maybe there's a little bit of Uriah talking. He motions them both in, registers Andrew's par-for-the-course threat ("This better work," though he doesn't add, 'or I kill her'; Uriah is starting to suspect he only kills Mechanics and doesn't know what to make of the information) as they walk into the doorway.

They shake hands. Thema holds herself upright and looks suspiciously at Quinn's careless slouch and her obvious unkemptness; in comparison the dry, matter-of-fact handshake Andrew offers her with a blank expression must seem harmless, or at the very least unremarkable, and Uriah considers warning her that he really is the dangerous one out of the two, but she'll understand that soon enough. They all sit around the kitchen table and Thema pours more coffee, shaking her head no when Uriah asks if he can smoke inside. He doesn't really mind, doesn't need to, but he really wouldn't say no to something to do with his hands. The pervading silence is making jittery, that's all. 

Thema leans against the counter, staying upright because, Uriah knows, she likes to keep a situational position of dominance over the people she talks to. "So," she says, ostentatiously addressing Uriah, "what do you need me for?"

"It's difficult to explain," Uriah starts but, as expected, Andrew quickly takes over. He closes his fingers around his cup of coffee. "Uriah tells me you're the best at what you do," he says sharply, though that isn't exactly what Uriah told him. 

Thema crosses her arms on her chest. "I am."

Uriah mostly tunes out their conversation after that. Which is to say, he listens, of course he does, just like Quinn listens, even though she pretends not to, but the displays of power don't overly interest him. He catches Thema's jolt of surprise and almost-fear when Andrew explains their real goal, and he catches the expression on her face when she guesses that he probably has a range of weapons on his very person. She must know that Uriah wouldn't let her get hurt – not that he has any chance against Andrew, and he's definitely less skilled than her when it comes to fighting, so he would at most be betting on Andrew's burgeoning affection for him -, but then again it's been years and they didn't exactly part on best terms, so you never know. He follows the alterations on her face, and he feels relief and a soft giddiness when he sees how intrigued she is, though she won't let it transpire to anyone less attuned to her moods than Uriah is. (Or maybe that's not the best formulation: Uriah is attuned to everyone's moods, has made it a job to know what people are thinking, what they want more than anything; a priority quality for a good dealer.)

She sits at the table opposite Andrew and they discuss his motivations for going after Nomi. Thema cocks her head, perceptive as ever. "Why do you hate her so much?"

"It's none of your concern," Andrew retorts, brushing the concern away with an annoyed sweep of his hand on the formica. 

"It is. If you're going to go awry mid-operation because you can't handle your burning hatred for the woman, I'd rather know, and save myself the embarrassment and the jail time."

Uriah almost laughs. Quinn does, the fluty musical sound he's used to know; she taps a quick rhythm on the table with her nails as she does.

"Fair enough," Andrew says, his jaw locked. "Let's say that she hurt my family, and I'd like to make her pay for that, besides which I'm a concerned citizen and not a supporter of tyranny. That enough for you?"

Thema nods. "I guess it'll have to do. What are the specifics?"

"Of what?" Andrew asks, wary.

Thema laughs, not unkindly. "My employment."

Andrew visibly relaxes. Huh. Uriah will have to probe a bit deeper into that family stuff; he's always been a fan of tragic backgrounds, and the guy will probably be easier to tolerate once that's out in the open. "You'll be required to provide back-up when we need it, a mercenary job, all in all. I can work my way around a computer, but when it comes to more complicated interfaces, Uriah said -"

Thema gives a sharp nod. "Yes. I'll handle it." Uriah remembers that, too: the way her fingers flew over the vertical keyboard, her eyes, focused and almost shining with the blue-green glow, that bottom lip she'd sucked in while she was working. Remarkable woman, he'd told Andrew, and to Thema at the way he'd only teased, crowed that she was handy right up until she clocked him in the face. Fond memories. 

"Good. Other than that, you'll get -"

"Our lifelong appreciation," Uriah says at the same time as Andrew finishes with, "a generous compensation." Thema laughs. "I'll take the compensation," she says. "But you'd better get your stories straight." She jerks a thumb at Quinn. "Who's she?" She slants a sharp look at Uriah, making it clear that she doesn't know how he got himself into this – it would be a euphemism to say that this kind of grand quest isn't his style – and that she doesn't approve of his bringing his junkie girlfriends along. 

"A friend," Andrew says before he can interject, but Thema won't be satisfied with that. They're all surprised – and Uriah feels a little ashamed – when Quinn slides her hand across the table and rises it for Thema to shake. "I'm Quinn," she says softly, her head tilting to the side like it's too heavy for Quinn to bear. 

Thema shakes the proffered hand with barely-hidden distaste. "What are you on?"

Quinn gives her an oblique smile, _if you knew_. "Sleep medication, mostly," she answers slowly, twisting her thin mouth in a thoughtful expression, "a few things for depression, I can't remember the names." She points lazily at the window. "But I have my suitcase in the car, I can find the prescription if you want."

Thema has the good grace to look vaguely bashful. "Mm," she says. "And what are you doing with those two?"

Quinn reclines in the chair, letting go of Thema's hand – though not without dragging her fingers across Thema's palm, whatever that means, odd flirtation or that her heaviness spreads to every limb. "I've got my own beef with the queen," she says quietly, with an teasing undercurrent. "Childhood trauma, unfinished business if you will."

Thema accepts the explanation, and probably wouldn't ask more, but Quinn volunteers the rest, "I have the plans," she doesn't specify which ones, and instead points at her own head, "carved right there in my skull. I'm not going to forget, so... why not make use of them, right?"

"Right," says Thema, wrong-footed. Uriah is selfishly glad; at least now he won't be the only normal person with those two phenomenon of nature.

They keep hashing the details out, and Uriah can't help but notice how little Thema seems to have to leave behind, her house and a stack of papers, maybe a friend or two, but she doesn't sound even remotely heartbroken about having to leave her home for the foreseeable future at the drop of a hat with an ex-con she used to know and two strangers. Taste for adventure, or maybe a more mercenary taste for the money that goes with it – who knows. After a while Uriah asks if they're going back to the Hamptons directly, because for all intents of purpose he's still in the dark about their plan and now that he's here of his own free will he feels like he's entitled to a little more information. 

Andrew sighs, typical, like he's doing everyone a big favor. "We won't be able to get into the Mansion like I was planning, especially after what happened at LAX." They caught Thema up on that and she laughed, mocked their planning and recounted that apparently Nomi found out pretty quick that Henderson was behind the whole thing and had him cryogenized, the Mechanic version of the death penalty. "I know something that will help us. I was hoping not to have to do this, but there's going to be extra security and I'm hoping we can get some valuable information out of it."

"What exactly are we collecting?" Thema asks. Behind Quinn the sun bursts in the sky, violently orange, and a wave of generous light floods the kitchen, making everyone blind for a second. Quinn takes advantage of the situation to slip away, and the next time Uriah looks over to her she's sitting on Thema's front step, raking her fingers through a stray cat's ratty fur, her lips pulled up over her yellowish teeth and her dress hitched up to her knees. 

Andrew blinks a few times. "Notebooks. They're a family heirloom, my father -" a shadow passes over his face, quick but thunderous, "my father worked in Mechanic genetics. He compiled his findings in those notebooks, apparently there's a lot of things about the original designs, I think it could help at least prepare us."

Thema doesn't look entirely sure, but she agrees nonetheless. The new light delineates the tattoos on her arms and neck more clearly, and in a way makes her seem more familiar to Uriah – in the rosy dawn she was almost a stranger, her dark skin tinged pale and sickly, but now she's back to being the healthy, strong woman Uriah remembered, and it's a relief, it sights more right with him.

"Where is it?" she asks. 

"Nevada," Andrew says. Now he's the one who looks tired: they'll have to catch a few hours of sleep before leaving, especially if they're going to fucking _Nevada_. "In the Mojave desert. There's a Mechanic laboratory there. I know the government's given up on it, but I think there will be soldiers anyway, guarding the place."

"Why?"

Andrew's mouth twists. "What Quinn said," he says, curt. "Childhood trauma." And to Thema and Uriah's inquisitive looks, he supplements: "It's the original laboratory."

He doesn't need to say more, they all know the story: mad scientist creates robot, fucks up robot, robot becomes intelligent and takes over the world. It's an almost deceptively simple story, and it illustrates all the horror stories the century before them had been fond of, not that they listened, of course. Intelligent robots. Well, everyone said it was a bad idea, but of course there was greed and commercial success and morals isn't really the darling of the two thousands, so here they are now, trying to kill their queen, their beautiful and immortal and cruel queen. Uriah laughs a little at himself, looks over their scarce and exhausted team – what a strange company they make, and he doubts they'll succeed, but either way planning makes adrenaline pumps in his veins and he can't say that he's sad to see Thema again. He'd always figured he'd show up at her door one day, smile rakishly and say something charming, so that she'd open her door and let him in – say she was an idiot and forgive, because people tend to forgive Uriah when he smiles and says sorry a few times in a row. (And it's another thing he learned from his addicts, how to lie as well as he does – open his mouth and just let the absurdities pour out and watch as people believe because he's able to inject some poor disguise of honesty into his eyes.)

"Okay," says Thema. 

She brings them both to his room and gives and starts stocking a bag with weapons (all sorts of things: handguns, one of two old K9s, a hunting rifle, a set of knives, an assortment of exotic-looking spears Uriah doesn't even know the name of), zips it, adds a laptop on top of it and gives it to Uriah. "You can take that to the car," she says absently. Uriah nods and takes it; when he turns back Andrew is sitting on the bed and they're talking animatedly, Thema packing up her own suitcase with clothes.

He passes Quinn by as he goes dump the bag in the car. She smiles up at him, her eyes crinkling, but he remembers that she is not kind and definitely broken up inside in ways he can't even imagine; he smiles back, decides never to feel pity for her since it's a universal truth that people hate to be pitied. Besides, he's going to have to travel more with her – the best thing here would be for them to be cordial, if not friends. Uriah would like to say he's learned, over the years, how to be friends with broken people, but truth is he hasn't: he doesn't understand the deep ridges that divide a human being in two, and the faraway eyes, capable to fill in a few seconds with musty remnants of ancient pain, scare him beyond belief. That's in part why he likes Thema – she's dependable, not someone to turn on him because something in his past sometimes stirs like a hidden beast. It's not that broken people aren't interesting – they are -; Uriah just doesn't want to be collateral damage. 

He takes longer than he'd thought. He digs a cigarette in the passenger seat where it'd crumpled under him during the trip, straightens it out best as he can and smokes it slowly in the morning chill. The honeyed light slides on his arms, warming the leather of his jacket; after a while he lays it on the hood of the car and reclines against the side of the car in shirtsleeves, happy for a reason he doesn't really want to investigate, watching as the traffic picks up a few streets away, the distant rumor of the noise growing minutely. 

When he comes back inside everything is silent. He squints to acclimate to the different light, calls in a hushed whisper, "Andrew?"

Thema's voice streams from the kitchen. "He's asleep. Come."

She's coding when he steps into the kitchen, and he stops, leans against the doorjamb to watch. The glasses on her nose give her a studious air which suits her, and Uriah laughs. "What is it?" she asks, still focused on her screen. 

"Nothing. Where are the others?"

"Sleeping," she says. "I figured it would be useless for you guys to go to a hotel, especially if we're leaving as soon as possible, which I assume we are." She looks up at him, as though defying him to contest her decision.

"No rest for the mighty," Uriah says lightly. "I mean, evil doesn't sleep." 

She quirks her lips, amused despite herself. "Good to know," she says drily. "There's a bed for you if you want," she addds, and then amends: "well, at least a futon."

As if on cue, he yawns, surprising himself. "I guess I do," he says, chuckling a little. "I'll just -" he points to the chair on the opposite end of the table, where he'd been sitting previously. She nods to indicate she doesn't mind. 

He watches her work for a while. From what he's gathering, she's preparing for their departures – tweaking a few details on the warrants out on the two of them (from what he knows, Quinn doesn't – yet – have an outstanding warrant for herself, unless Andrew and her haven't told him everything, which wouldn't be even remotely surprising), checking where Nomi is and what's transpiring about the LAX incident, calculating what they'll need to do to get into the laboratory. It's good that they have her, Uriah thinks dazedly. He was right.

"Why are you doing this?" he asks as he can feel himself slipping into sleep; he doesn't remember why he'd been so certain she would accept, and now it seems outright strange that she did, especially after all this time and the hatred she used to vow for him, even though both of them knew it wasn't that – not really. 

She shakes her head, almost fond. "Why do you think?"

He doesn't know, that's why he asked; but he doesn't say that, doesn't say, _it's not for the money_ , doesn't ask for further explanation. He'll have time for that later, and besides he's completely knackered, he'd probably miss half of it. He does his best to extract himself from the chair, his limbs leaden. "I'm going to -" he jerks a thumb towards the door, "go. Sleep for a while."

"Sure," she says, not looking up. "The futon is in my room. Don't make too much noise, Quinn is in my bed, and Andrew's on the couch. There are sheets and a towel, if you want to catch a shower." He nods, murmurs a thank you he isn't sure actually makes it out of his mouth. 

It's only when he's reaching the door, resting a hand against the wall to support himself – he really is extraordinarily tired, and it just seemed to fall on him all at once, so heavy he feels like his bones might crack under the weight – when he hears her voice through the daze. "Do you trust them?" she's asking, matter-of-fact.

He rests his back against the door, gives her a smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Do you?"

She opens her mouth to retort something, but doesn't, as though cottoning up to something. Uriah tucks his bangs behind his ear, still smiling. "Yeah," he says. "Me neither. But – adventure, right?"

He doesn't wait for her answer; slinks out the room and pads to the futon, where he dives face-first, and falls into an unrepentant sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

**5.**

It's not a secret that Andrew doesn't trust much. Possibly, he trusts even less that the others believe: this night, calm and velvety, a deep blue that would break any heart, puts him on edge. The urge to wake the others up simmers under his skin, but he doesn't do it. He keeps driving. They're not even remotely close to Nevada, and while they're sleeping it means it can think, that his mind can work without fearing that someone will interrupt or, like Uriah is wont to do, ask a flurry of useless and always more pointed questions.

His wrists ache a little, from all the hours spent at the wheel, but he doesn't mind. It's important, for people like him, to be aware of one's body, and know how its cogs and wheels work: this way there is never the risk of losing control. Uriah doesn't understand that, but it makes sense – after all, he used to make his specialty of teaching people how to let go of themselves, and even though he is, from what Andrew can see, somewhat competent at handling himself, he can't understand what it means to permanently keep the body reined in, ready to jump. Thema probably understands better, but Andrew doesn't know or trust her. She does seem smarter than Uriah, and that in itself is a subject of concern: but for now she's shown no desire to do anything else but follow his orders and work for her fee.

Andrew's thoughts shift to the desert against his will. They're supposed to reach the Mojave in a few hours, and then he knows there will be only a few more kilometers of practicable road before they have to abandon the car and finish their trip on foot. He wishes it wasn't so difficult: he's never been comfortable with those plains of arid sand, the burning, bare immensity where anyone could spot and annihilate them without so much as a second thought. It makes him twitchy, more nervous than usual. Thema's K9s won't do much to protect them in a place like this, where the danger could come from any side, at any moment, and they're all wanted criminals. Besides, how will Quinn cope? Some days she's fine, sprightly and quick on her feet, witty, enigmatic; but on others she'll sleep through the days, shaken by bad dreams, and there's nothing to do to tear her off her prostrate state, shaking like a leaf. What if she falls sick in the desert, what then? They won't be able to save her. Andrew isn't concerned about death, but without that girl's mind, the whole mission could be compromised. He's not ready to take that chance. 

"Are you worried?" a voice says from behind him asks, making him jump. 

The car jerks to the side, and Andrew swears to himself. Next to him, Thema doesn't stir, though her grip on her gun tightens. If times were different, Andrew would enjoy her company, maybe even ask her for a comparison of their respective talents. People like that are in short supply in the business. 

Quinn laughs, high-pitched and nerve-grating. "Oh, did I frighten you?"

"No," Andrew says, trying to make it as flat as possible, but he's irritated. "I thought you were asleep."

"You thought wrong. Where are we?"

"Close."

Quinn makes a humming sound. Andrew hears rustling behind him, and she whispers, "He's asleep, don't worry." Next thing he knows she's resting her elbows against the back of his seat, speaking in his ear. "Sorry for the trouble," she says with that strange tone of voice that could be mistaken for mischievousness. "I was just wondering."

"What?"

"If you were worried. You seem like it."

In the rearview mirror her face is obscured, the only thing clearly visible her bulging insect eyes and her pudgy chin. She looks vaguely malevolent, and for a second a strong, unshakable distaste invades Andrew's body, but it's gone before he can even decipher where it comes from. He shakes his head. Quinn smiles again, and Andrew remembers that his mother loved her, for reasons she never explained, and told him a story, once, where she was a fairy, even though he was already an adult at the time. But she was sick; she always thought he was a baby when she was sick.

"I'm not worried." They're riding smoothly again, the road a ribbon of black asphalt in front of them; Andrew's shoulders relax a fraction. He waits a while, regulates his breathing and secures the position of his hands around the wheel, before he talks again. "Do you remember my mother?"

Something flashes across Quinn's features, but it's too dark for Andrew to see what it is exactly. Grief, maybe, or maybe Andrew is just projecting: he hasn't been able to feel much about her since she's been gone. "I do," Quinn says quietly. "Sometimes she's all I remember."

"She never told me about what she did for you."

It isn't the truth, exactly, but it'll do. Anyway, Quinn doesn't seem to take him at his word, and she sinks back into the obscurity, reclining in her seat. "She must've had a good reason, then," she says lightly.

"Maybe."

 _She's dead_ , he wants to say, for the pure satisfaction of saying it to someone; because he was almost alone at the funeral and there should have been more people there, people who loved her like she deserved. He doesn't say it, of course. This plan is already risky enough without him succumbing to sudden outbursts of honesty, God forbid. _She's dead. She's dead. My mother is dead_. Will he ever get it out of his head?

"Is there a reason you don't tell them?"

God, this again. Every time she talks it seems like she's speaking up from some remote corner of his soul; it makes Andrew want to turn around and shut her up like he does with the Mechanics. But he said – no, no matter how you look at it, it's not easy to have a code when you're an assassin. (He didn't call himself that in the beginning, thought to himself 'metal repurposer' but after a while the blood on his hands got to him and he had to admit to himself that they might not be human beings, but the blood was real. Well. As real as fake blood gets when it spurts out an artery and gets stuck under your fingernails.)

He shakes his head. "What do you mean?"

She cocks her head. "You know what I mean."

"I don't."

It really is a strange situation: four people in a car, with a bag full of weapons in the boot, and not one of them trusts the other. It sounds like the back cover for a bad whodunnit.

Quinn clucks her tongue. In the rearview mirror, her reflection drags a hand through her messy hair. "Is there a reason you don't tell them who your grand-daddy is?"

Well, at least he was wrong for thinking the situation couldn't get any worse. The car didn't veer off the road again, but Andrew grinds his teeth so hard some enamel probably chips away. Where was the world going, if even insane people can't stay insane long enough to be harmless? "Who told you that?"

"Who do you think?"

"My mother wouldn't -"

"Your mother trusts me," Quinn says sharply, and for some reason the present tense cuts Andrew more deeply than fear does. "She told me because she knows she can, and I won't do anything to endanger her or her family because she saved my life, and she was the only person who was kind to me since -" her voice breaks. "I just want to know why you don't tell them. Aren't we supposed to be in this together?"

"It's not that simple."

"Isn't it?" But she knows, she must know it isn't: what happens to everyone after Nomi is killed? What happens to this mission if they find out why he wants to kill her? What happens – there are just so many ways this could go wrong, and it can't, because Andrew made a promise and that promise is everything he is and everything he believes in.

"No." He stops the car, not really sure what his hands are doing anymore. And say he was bragging about his self-control: one mention of his mother and he's back to being a grade-schooler. He turns around, trying to look as indomitable as possible. "Look, Quinn – I know my mother trusted you. You understand why I'm doing this. The others... won't."

Quinn nods. She opens the door, gets out of the car; when he looks at her Andrew realizes they've reached the edge of the desert, and for a frightening moment he thinks it's her doing, that she brought them there. Of course it doesn't make any sense, so he shakes it off. "Come on," she says, putting her hands to his window. "Get out of the car, we can walk. This way they can't hear you."

Andrew looks over at the two sleeping forms, and she has a point – besides, it's not like anything can happen to them now and here, in a location this removed. Even if it does, Thema is more than able to defend them. 

"Right," he says. The air hits him as soon as he gets out, the chilly wind that comes from the desert. Every is silent; if sand had a smell this would be it, acrid and suffocating but somehow able to summon the immensity of the dark night, the endless stretch of uninhabited territory, fraught with dangers and abandoned corpses. Andrew has no delusions on the romantic nature of the desert. 

"Your mother loves you," Quinn half-shouts from a few paces away. 

"I don't need you to tell me that," Andrew snaps. It's the fact that Quinn believes she's alive: it puts him on edge, makes him envious as though she had something he lost.

"Did your grand-daddy love you too?" She grins, unrepentant. "From what I've heard he's kind of a monster." 

If he were still sixteen he would jump on her and wring her neck, easy as you please. He knew how to do that, even then, and leave no traces. His mother loved him, but she wasn't gentle. Gentleness is a lie: it doesn't exist, at least not in Andrew's world – and when it does it means naivety and a propensity to die earlier rather than later. 

"That's none of your business."

"You should loosen up. Do you still carry all that guilt? Sara told me that. She said you were blaming yourself for what he did."

Anyone would. "I don't."

"Then why do you want do you want her so bad? Why do you to take her," she opens her hand in the dark and closes it around a cluster of stars, the night radiant and shining in her back, "and kill her like you do the others, put a knife in her head and put her down?"

"You know what I do?" He never told her. But she listens; she's more dangerous than she lets on. 

"I know a lot of things. I know how your grand-daddy used to spend his days, back when you weren't even a thought in your mother's brain. Did he tell you why he called Nomi like he did? He was angry, wasn't he? What was he angry about?"

There's a knife in his boot. He could wring the plans out of her and then slit her throat, leave her here to die. Of course the others wouldn't be happy, but he could lie to them, say she had an epilepsy attack, started convulsing all over the sand, and he had to kill her so that she wouldn't suffer.

"Look," he says, trying to sound more irritated than shaken up, "are you going to tell them or not?"

"No," she ponders, "I don't think so." And then she waltzes close to him, her smell clear in the brisk air, sweat and a heavy flowery perfume he doesn't know where she got, puts a hand on his shoulder, and says, "but you owe me now. I don't tell, so you have to give me something in exchange."

He grounds his teeth. "What do you want?"

She leans to whisper in his ear. He listens, then pulls away, takes a minute to mull over the conditions. "It's not nothing," he says eventually.

She licks her lips. Uriah is right, there really is something about those eyes; they seem to glow even in this darkness that's thick as molasses, as deep and far from inconsequential as possible. "It isn't. But your secret's not nothing either, is it?"

He turns over on his heels, getting back to the car. "Okay," he agrees.

She makes a crowing sound of victory, childish, then calls out – when he sees her throw something he stretches his hand out by reflex, and catches the car keys. "Sorry," she says, her eyes glittering. "They fell out of your pocket."

He doubts it, but doesn't question it. She'll keep the secret – that's enough for now.

*

Uriah wakes up to Andrew's voice shaking him out of sleep without delicacy or kindness. He seems even sourer than usual, and for about half a second Uriah considers asking him if something's wrong, but then Andrew throws him an apple and tells him to 'get off his ass, we have work to do' and the urge passes, just like that.

It's not even morning, unless you call morning a thin line of periwinkle light at the very edge of the horizon, beyond the terrifying ochre emptiness. When he looks over, Quinn is stretching, her shoulders slumped, and Thema is cocking a gun and slipping it into her belt. Actually, that's what she'd done after –

"How far is it?" Thema asks, interrupting his thoughts. 

"Not that far. We can go about halfway with the car, then we'll have a few hours walk. I think we should all go."

Thema eyes Quinn critically. At her demand, she's been informed of her various problems, and with the meds they've been forcing her to take – apparently she wasn't very regular back on Captiva, and the locals didn't exactly take care of her – she's been more or less stable, but there's no telling what hours spent traipsing in the desert would do to her health. 

"I'll be fine," says Quinn, looking thoroughly unconcerned. 

"I'm not sure we can trust you on that," Andrew starts, and then something strange happens: she glares at him, and instead of glaring back or just ignoring her like he usually does, he pipes down almost immediately. 

"Wait, what's going on?" Uriah asks, because really, being out of the loop is getting old. But of course, Andrew has no qualms ignoring _him_ , and the conversation continues as though he hadn't spoken.

"We can just do the car part, and then we'll figure it out. It's not like there's anything else to do, and we can't leave her behind."

Quinn doesn't seem to mind being talked of in the third person, at least; she just smiles like she knows something they don't, as usual, does a few stretches and gets back into the car, donning the oversized sunglasses she bullied Uriah into stopping to buy for her the last city they went through. "Well, are we going or not? Destiny's not going to wait."

Thema laughs; she doesn't really like or understand Quinn, but Quinn makes her laugh, and they need a bit of humor among the four of them. "She's right," she says. "I'll drive."

Uriah bites his lip. "I'm not sure."

Thema barks a laugh. "Don't be like that, pumpkin," she mocks. "I won't drive you off the road."

"Well," he starts, but now it's more for jest than anything else – he missed this, the joyous tension and that smile splitting her face, radiant –, "from what I remember -"

"And I think we have a track record of you remembering things wrong," she says as she slides into the driver seat. Uriah shrugs, and waves a hand at Andrew when he raises his eyebrows at him. "Trust me, you don't want to know."

The corner of Andrew's mouth quirks but he doesn't ask, though he probably files it away for future reference. He might hate robots, but the guy almost _is_ a freaking interface. Quinn only slaps Thema on the back – it's more of a carress given how weak she is and the awkward position, but the intent is definitely there. They could work like that, Uriah thinks with no small amount of wonder; not a family, but a cohesive unit, glued together by strange, misguided fondness. After all, he would be lying if he said he didn't already care about Quinn, even though Andrew is still a more complicated question. Thema... well, Thema is another story altogether, and Uriah won't risk trying to put a name to his feelings about her, but – yeah. The point being, they could work. They could even do good in this rotten world, who knows. Maybe Uriah could buy his way back into heaven.

As though to illustrate his point, there is little conflict during the hour or so they spend driving through the desert. They all don more appropriate clothes, hats and glasses, and open the windows. Uriah isn't the only one who's never been in the desert before, and so he can gape all he wants, eyes and mouth open to try and gather as much as he can of this monstrosity of nature, the flat and cracked soil, the dry air, the hills rising meekly here and there, the scarce, dark green vegetation that seems to warn living beings off venturing deeper into its territory. It's fascinating in a heady, animalistic way, like a proof that nature does have a soul, a gritty and terrible soul that human beings – that _beings_ , full stop, Uriah doesn't want to be discriminatory – shouldn't investigate too closely. 

As they near the point where the road becomes impracticable, though, they start to get serious. Thema gets her laptop out and, with Andrew's instructions, manages to hack into the laboratory's system. Uriah watches from behind her, the numbers jumping on the small screen, sometimes illuminating in colors, red, green, blue. Andrew follows the proceedings and there's a conversation with too many words Uriah doesn't understand, even though he did take one or two Computer Science courses back when they stopped using the binary system. He'd done well at the time, but apparently all this science has worn off. So he only listens with half an ear, and with the other he watch the tattoos on the nape of Thema's neck, where she's tied her hair up in a ponytail so that it doesn't bother her, trying to guess what they mean. Knowing Thema, they must mean something. 

"So how did you two meet?" Quinn asks after a while, making him jump. She has this way of making people forget she exists and then to speak up, remind them that she's been looking all along. It's creepy, if Uriah has anything to say about it.

He waves his hand in an attempt to change the subject, somewhat embarrassed. "Long story."

Quinn touches his arm, and it's like an electric jolt. "I have the time," she says with an oblique smile. 

Uriah shakes his head, but he's about to tell her, when – "Their security is ten armed men, all Mechanics from what I can gather," Thema says. "All that for a crummy old empty building?"

"She must know there's still something inside," Andrew says tensely.

"And she hasn't found it after fifteen years? Maybe we should just give up then. There's no way we're going to find, within limited time, what Nomi and her army haven't managed to dig up after that much time."

There's a spell of silence where no one talks but they all seem to agree, and then Andrew speaks up. "I know where it is," he admits.

Thema and Uriah's outbursts are perfectly synchronized. "How?" "What?" It would be funny if it were any other situation but one where the slightest mistake might get them blasted to death by an over-zealous Mechanic guard. Thema recovers first, livid. "And you didn't think it was important to mention that?"

"I thought you'd gathered," Andrew snaps, typically. "I told you my father was a scientist there. Before it closed, he hid the notebooks, and when he died he told me where they were."

Thema looks doubtful, and Uriah can't really blame her. "Wait, when did you say the laboratory was shut down?"

"Five years after the Awakening," Andrew says, too quickly. "They let go of all the human scientists working on Mechanic bio-genetics because they thought it was dangerous, they took the research and they continued it themselves, without alerting the public, because they were afraid the humans might try and use the research to design Mechanic-specific weapons. My father hid his notebooks because he didn't want all his research to be lost."

"Why did he hide it _in_ the laboratory? He had to know he couldn't retrieve it, if the Mechanics left security there."

Andrew shrugs; even from where he is, crammed in the back seat, Uriah can see he's far from relaxed. "I guess he didn't know about the guard, and he thought he could come back when they left the facility and get the notebooks."

It doesn't feel right, but there's no way to ask more questions without sounding suspicious, and it's not like they have trust in abundance here. Besides, fighting just before an operation like this, where they most likely will have to have each other's back, might not the be the best idea, even Uriah gets that.

"Okay," says Thema, who's obviously reached the same conclusions. "And you're sure we can't get the notebooks without alerting the guards?" 

Andrew's mouth twists in a grimace. "Yes. From what my father told me, they're in the main room, under the pedestal you see here," he points at the 3D rotating map on Thema's screen. "Now, in all probability the pedestal won't be here anymore, so we'll have to find the spot ourselves. There's a trap door, and then a safe. I have the code, so that should be fine. But first we need to get inside the room, and there are going to be at least two guards in front the main entrance door, depending on their routine, and one in the back. With the enhanced hearing and their equipment, I highly doubt we can get past them without a fight, even if we manage to subdue the guards on one of the sides."

"Can't we pretend to be, I don't know, safety agents or something?"

Andrew shakes his head. "From what Thema showed me, there hasn't been any visit in more than a year, including from Nomi herself. It seems they've all but given up on the facility, and in a year or two they'll probably even reassign the guards. It would be highly suspicious if we showed up there without forewarning. Not to mention I don't think many humans are even aware of the existence of the facility, much less allowed to go near it. We have to attack; it's the best chance we have to actually get inside."

Uriah makes a face. "I know you're the Robin Hood that preys on Mechanics or whatever, but I don't if you've noticed, the rest of us aren't exactly equipped to deal with those crazies. They'll tear Quinn limb to limb before she can even say cheese, and I don't think I'll fare much better."

Andrew's face hardens. "You'll be fine. It's probably safer that we keep Quinn behind, but we have to take you," he looks at Quinn in the eye, his face unreadable, "with us. You'll be in more danger if you stay behind. You..." he looks at Uriah now. Thema takes over. "I have gear exactly for this type of situation. You're quick, agile and a fast-talker. You'll act and diversion, and then do everything I say."

It's a wonky plan, even Uriah can see that: from what Thema told them in the journey over, Nomi's given up on the desert years ago, and since it's forbidden to install either colonies or shops inside, only madmen and LSD-crazed hippies ever wander into the desert anymore, especially at this time of year when the nights are horribly cold and can easily kill you if you don't have anywhere to sleep. Him showing up out of the blue won't make any sense and is more liable to get Uriah killed than it is to act as any kind of diversion.

"This is a bad idea," he says, crossing his arms over his chest. 

"This is the only idea," Andrew corrects. 

It takes a lot more needling, and maybe even one or two promises that Andrew definitely doesn't intend to keep, but they eventually manage to convince Uriah to do as he's told. They stop the car and load up with weapons. Thema's apparently kept busy while they were all sleeping, because she gets bulletproof vests out of the car – and not amateur ones, either, but ones you can only get on the black market, reinforced with kevlar and inured against Mechanic technology. With it under his jacket, Uriah immediately feels a little less like he's going to be seeing his ancestors soon and more like he might after all live to see his children. Or – well. Someone else's, at least.

Of course, carrying seven hundred weapons each doesn't exactly make it easy, or pleasant, to walk, but Uriah consoles himself with the sight of the gun holster crossing on Thema's broad back, which is curiously attractive. Quinn just saunters around, for some reason looking ten thousand times more dangerous with a blaster at her belt and – Uriah knows – a knife in the garter under her skirt. Now the only thing left to do is pray she doesn't get to use them, and if she does, that Uriah isn't on the receiving end of that fight. 

"You okay?" Thema asks. 

Uriah huffs, overplaying his discontent. What? He can do that. He's the one who's being used as bait, after all. What happened to gender inequality? "I'm fine," he says gruffly. "Well. I will be, after we finish this mission, kill Nomi, destroy the present government and I can sleep in my own bed again."

Thema laughs. "How did you end up mixed up in this, anyway?"

"I really don't know. One minute I was in a club in New York and the next I was roadtripping with a Mechanic-killer."

"A –"

"Don't ask."

Thema gives him a look, like she will indeed ask, once this is all behind them, but for now she lets go and gives Uriah an impish grin. "You sounded pretty convinced yesterday."

"Temporary brain damage. I didn't know we'd have to trek through a desert on our way to our very own suicide mission."

"Cheer up," Thema laughs again, and she starts sprinting to join Andrew, probably to fashion new details to their already insane odyssey, and why exactly did Uriah think it was a good idea to get her involved in this, "we already had the apocalypse." Well, she's right – at least now he can put things in perspective.

He shuts his mouth after that to focus on walking, and it's long hours of sand and sun and not much else, and though Quinn doesn't collapse in the middle it's still not the most pleasant thing Uriah has ever done. At the end of it – or more like: when they finally spot the laboratory from afar – they're all brown with dust and short of breath, and they probably look like quite the civilized bunch, with weapons everywhere under their clothes. Fortunately, Thema has devised an itinerary that keeps them from being spotted by the guards miles away from their destination, and they crouch behind nearby rocks to assess the situation. 

"Okay," Andrew says, taking on his self-appointed role as chief of everything, "Quinn, you stay here and you call us if anything – _anything_ – happens: if they move, if someone approaches, you call us." He hands them all their set of comms, which they put on diligently. Quinn nods. "Uriah, you go in first: you can say anything, just try to not get yourself killed. While they're distracted we'll use the shade," he points the falling shadows on their right, threatening to swallow the building, and talk about convenient timing, "to get closer. Then we improvise."

Uriah gives a little near-hysterical laugh. "I'm sorry? 'Then we improvise?' That's your plan?"

Andrew's face gets thunderous. "If you have something better..."

"I'm not the one who decided to come here in the first place! I was okay with the whole killing the queen thing, but this – this is suicide. What do we even need those notebooks for, anyway?"

"Keep your voice down," Thema hisses, just as Andrew retorts, "I told you why we need them. They might have information about Nomi's biological make-up which could help us."

"They _might_? I'm sorry, that's not enough for me to go in and _risk my life_ , just because your daddy might have taken a few notes! Do you even hear yourself?"

The mention of his father makes Andrew shake violently, but he doesn't react. Uriah continues, because – well, because he's angry and this is his _life_ they're talking about, it's not exactly a commodity, and this thing about the notebooks is getting more flimsy by the minute. 

"Pipe down, you idiots," Thema interjects, and it's enough to quell Uriah's anger. He slides back behind the rock, holding his face in his hands. He takes a deep breath. "Okay," he says eventually. "I'll go. I'm going. But if I die, it's on you. I swear I'll come back as a ghost and haunt you for the rest of your fucking life."

Andrew nods, barely hiding a sneer. Thema sighs, glances at Quinn who's looking between them and laughing, as though she has the right idea. "Are you finished? You'll tell each other how much you love each other later. Let's go." She reiterates Andrew's instructions, which sound much more sensible in her mouth, possibly because she adds a few details, like how exactly he's supposed to distract the guards and what exactly they're going to do when – if – he manages that.

Uriah takes a deep breath. It's going to be okay, he tells himself – and then he remembers that he's hiding behind a rock in a godforsaken, about to go act as the proverbial fly to the big bad Mechanics, and it's probably not going to be okay. But he said yes, didn't he? And he does honor his promises once in a while. 

"Okay," he says, blatantly to Andrew and Thema, but more to himself. "Let's do this."

The Mechanics actually don't notice him until he's shockingly close to the facility, which might be an indication on their degree of boredom. Waiting out there in the desert for nothing to happen probably isn't the most interesting job you can get, and Uriah allows himself a second to wonder what horrible thing they did to be put here on duty. And then, just before he gets to the part where he actually pities them, they see him and there are five guns pointed at his chest. Uriah feels much less inclined to compassion. 

He clears his throat. "Peace," he croons, holding his hands up. "I'm unarmed." 

The worst thing about this scenario being, of course, that he _is_ , in fact, unarmed – Andrew's glorious idea, so that they won't find anything when they inevitably search him.

"What are you doing here?" one of the guard asks. It's impossible to see their face, what with those big helmets and seriously, Uriah is all for good security but this feels seriously over the top. He likes to see a person's face when he has a conversation. 

He says as much. The gun moves from his forehead to his crotch. O-kay then. 

"Calm down, big fella, I got it. You have the gun, I only speak when I'm asked, I know how it works with you butch queens. Can't someone do a little tourism anymore?"

Yeah, that was weak even when they talked about it with Thema. You'd have to have pretty low standards or seriously like cacti to be interested in a place like this. Plus, it's not like it's very homely, either. 

Guard Number One, he of the nervous gun, herds him closer, and the other one who, by the orders they bark at him – all very standard: put your hands up, surrender, blah blah – is probably a woman, pats him down carefully. As promised, they don't find any weapons on Uriah, but that doesn't really make them less nervous. Uriah would've thought they'd like some entertainment, really, after all that sitting around doing nothing. But hey, at least he didn't get blasted on sight, so he's not going to complain.

The upside to all this being, at least those two are going to be focused on some time which, if Thema's calculations are right – and Uriah is praying that they are – will allow Andrew and her to round the facility and incapacitate the other two Mechanics guarding the back door. After that there's a fifty percent chance that they left personnel inside, and isn't that going to be fun, and then they have to be as quick as possible to do what they came here to do before the rest of the garrison cotton on to what's happening. Uriah didn't ask how this is all supposed to end because, well, Andrew has no problem offing Mechanics and Uriah has it on good authority that Thema can be ruthless if needed, but Uriah actually does get squeamish around too many corpses, so sue him. But let's not think about this right now. 

He gives She-Mechanic a winning smile. She doesn't look charmed, but then it's pretty hard to tell, what with the mask and the military training. Maybe she's not into inter-species – just his luck. "So, how are you guys handling it out there? Not missing the company? I mean, I wouldn't – there are some really nice mushrooms a few paces from here. I could show you, if you -"

"Shut up," is all he gets for his trouble, that and a rough slap to the back of his head. 

"You could stand to be more civil, you know," he tells the other one. "Didn't you momma teach you any manners?" A few more minutes and he'll be sure that Andrew and Thema are in, and then he can shut up and wait for them to rescue him. Yes – sounds like a plan. "

The Mechanic is undoubtedly about to retort with his own witty repartee when he perks up, his hand tensing around Uriah's forearm. "Did you hear that?" he asks to his companion.

She shakes her head no. "What is it? Do you think he," she nods towards Uriah, "brought other people with him?"

The Mechanic groans. "We would've seen them coming. Unless -" Oh, crap. 

Well, this is exactly what Uriah was hoping to avoid, so that's great – is what he thinks when the Mechanic's hand leaves his forearm and tightens around his throat, choking him. Uriah tries to jerk his head back, but the hand is firm, holding him in place. "Who are you? What are you doing here? Who are you working for?"

"I told you," Uriah splutters as best as he can, "I'm just an innocent tourist, in search for some good shrooms, I -"

The fist hits him on the side of his jaw, and Uriah would be lying if he said he'd never been punched in the face before, but it was definitely not an experience he was looking forward to reiterate. Fuck. He feels like the inside of his cheek is going to have his teeth imprinted on it, and seriously, what are they _doing_? Aren't they supposed to be, like, super-soldiers – shouldn't they have subdued those fucking guards by now? He knew this was a bad plan. 

The hand leaves his throat, and Uriah falls on the ground. He starts crawling backwards, blood dripping on his lips and chin; the female Mechanic, now standing at the door, probably standing guard, looks at him and Uriah can see through the slivers in her mask that she will look unflinchingly as her companion kills him. This is not the way this was supposed to go. Why did he even agree to this? He could be back home, in his bed, preferably with someone, having sex and eating sushi – but no, he decided he wanted to be an adventurer and now he's going to die in a deserted facility in the freaking _Mojave_ at the hands of a Mechanic guard who thinks he's a hippie-slash-spy. That's great. That's just great. 

"Whew," he says as soon as he can get his breath back, because apparently his greatest default is an inability to keep his mouth shut, "you guys can't take a joke, can you?"

But apparently the universe has other plans for him than unusual and cruel death, because Uriah only has the time to blink in the direction of the door and notice that the other Mechanic isn't there anymore before his designed interrogator collapses on top of him. Uriah oofs. 

"Come on," says Thema hurriedly, holding a hand out. "He's only unconscious."

Uriah takes the hand, huffing and puffing as he tries to get the Mechanic off him. "You guys sure took your sweet time. One more minute and I was dog food."

Thema gives him a grin, managing to make it at the same time apologetic and irreverent. "Yeah, well, we ran into some complications." She crouches near the Mechanic's body, laying her gun down. "Help me, we have to tie him up."

Uriah obeys, hooking his arms under the Mechanic's armpit and dragging him up, though not without difficulty. "That one could stand to go on diet," he huffs. "You have rope?"

"You know me, regular Boy Scout," Thema smiles, unloading a thick wad of rope from her backpack. Indeed. 

They drag the body across the room and tie him up to one of the metal poles on the side of the room, relieving him of his weapons, keys and other potentially useful equipment. "Where's Andrew?" Uriah asks when they're finished, as he sits down, his fingers tightening on his newly-acquired Sig Sauer (top of the line, those Mechanics don't do things halfway). "What happened?"

Thema shakes her head. "Nothing, really, there were just more than we expected at the backdoor, so we had to take care of that. Andrew's taking care of that one's," she jerks a thumb at the unconscious Mechanic, "girlfriend."

"Do I want to know?"

"Probably not," Thema shakes her head. 

They exchange a look. From what Uriah knows, Thema isn't aware of what Andrew does for a living, but he doesn't seem particularly ashamed or secretive when it comes to that part of his resume, so it wouldn't be surprising if he did. At least he's not the only one who knows it's safer keeping an eye on him. 

Andrew interrupts their silent understanding when he waltzes into the room. It only takes one glance for Uriah to notice the blood splatter on his shirt and sleeves, but he doesn't remark on it, only gets to his feet. "All done?"

"Yeah," Andrew says. He takes a look around the room: it's spacious and military-looking, but from the lack of scientific equipment or, well, anything, it doesn't look like the place they're looking for. Then again, it could have been cleaned out after the facility was decommissioned, but the 3D maps Thema showed them suggested there would be more left, including a sort of circular area in the middle where the pedestal is, supposed to be, plus a sort of farming area, and Uriah really doesn't want to know what that was for. He's a regular guy, after all, the horrors his fellow humans performed on other species isn't something he wants to reflect on.

"This isn't it," Andrew decrees. He goes over to the Mechanic to check the bondage because, well, you're a perfectionist bastard or you aren't; when he's satisfied he gets up on his feet and takes out his gun. "We have to hurry up," he says. "That's six of them out cold, it's not going to be long before the other smell that there's something wrong. Follow me."

They follow him, mostly because they don't want to die, but Andrew has a strange brand of charisma that doesn't really leave room for questions; as they're moving out the room, back to the wall, Uriah asks Thema, his voice low, "What did you do with the others?"

Thema looks away, pretending not to have heard. Uriah takes the hint. They move silently from room to room, following Andrew's directions. The facility isn't really homely, a big building with mostly empty rooms without windows or furniture, the walls painted a stark white, grey in the corridors. It smells of dust and old cleaning solution, with an undercurrent of damp moisture that's making Uriah want to cough. He holds it in, though, and the silence is thick and tense as they progress through the building, sticking close to their heels. The sound of their breathing is deafening. Once in a while the comm where Quinn is supposed to call if she sees something crackles and they stop, all hackles rising, but it doesn't give anything and they start walking again, always on their guard.

They could have been searching like this, silent and taut, for hours or merely minutes when a noise finally breaks the silence. It's distant but clear, a gun being cocked in a corridor nearby, and Uriah knows what it means – if they can hear it, it means that the Mechanics can hear _them_. Their hearing is much more developed than the human standard, and chances are the guards are lying there, waiting for one of them to make a mistake so they can spot and shoot them or worse, make them prisoner and interrogate them. 

"Okay," Andrew whispers. "Thema, on the count of three. Three..."

Uriah doesn't have the time to ask what _he_ is supposed to do before Andrew reaches three and he and Thema separate their backs from the wall and jump in the corridor behind them where, as expected, three Mechanic guards are waiting, guns cocked. Uriah watches, breath carefully held, as Andrew raises a weapon and a bullet ricochets again one of the Mechanics' uniforms; Thema twirls on herself with surprising grace and the sharp edge of a blade held at arm's length insinuates itslef in the thin strip of bare skin between uniform and mask. Blood spurt out of the artery, gurgling, and Thema kneels down on the Mechanic's chest to finish him. Uriah screams as soon as he spots the guard rising up behind her, and she turns around, gets on her feet and ducks just as a bullet comes whirring frightfully close to her ear. A few paces away, Andrew has taken cover behind a fire extinguisher; a flurry of bullets hits it and it explodes, gurgling white between the two soldiers.

Thema takes advantage of the diversion to sneak up on her assailant; one blow has his head jerking towards the wall, his helmet flying and hitting the ground with a clang, but he gets up, sneering. Thema doesn't seem fazed in the slightest; Uriah remembers the holster just as she reaches in her back and gets one of her guns out of it. They're still not evenly matched, at least if the size of the guns is anything to go by, but Thema delivers a kick to the Mechanic's middle and surprise, if not pain, has him doubled over. Unfortunately, it also has his finger tighten on the trigger, and Uriah can only watch as the bullet tears messily through the skin of Thema's upper thigh. It's only a flesh wound, but what a Mechanic can take without flinching will have a human on the ground in a matter of minutes, Uriah knows that. He considers getting involved in the fight, but he knows it will probably only mean one more corpse. A glance at Andrew confirms that he's in no position to help Thema – his own hands are busy trying to strangle the Mechanic he's been fighting since the beginning, and the one Thema put down with her knife is starting to stir, and looks eager to take his revenge.

Uriah crouches near the backpack Thema left behind. Maybe he can take his chances, and act as – well, diversion, let's be honest, it's the only thing he could be some use at. They might not be fooled in a situation like that, but it's not like Uriah can just stand there and watch his – friends? – die while he does nothing. It's one thing to watch someone OD – and even that, Uriah would rather it had never happened – but it's quite another to watch them bleed out while they're bludgeoned to death by a Mechanic on their quest to – well, world peace would be a little pretentious, but that's what it is, in a nutshell. 

But he looks up the situation has changed – again. Even with her thigh bleeding copiously, Thema has apparently managed to put her first assailant back down, if the bloody footprint over his nose and mouth is anything to go by, and the other Mechanic is now disarmed. Uriah watches as they start boxing each other out. Thema doesn't look too good, her face pale and her teeth firmly ground, sweating profusely, but her attacker isn't exactly peachy either, from what Uriah can gather. His right side seems to be hurt – he's holding it with one hand, and with the other he's trying to counter Thema's fists. She manages to land a blow eventually, getting him square in the nose, and it only takes a few other impacts before he's face down on the ground. Thema kicks his injured side repeatedly, her face lit with something close to rage. 

He's about to go and help her, try and tend to her injury, which is getting worse by the minute, when he catches sight of Andrew. He's in an even more precarious situation than before. Apparently the diversion caused by the extinguisher didn't last long; it's rolled on the ground, pierced in multiple places by the Mechanic's bullets. The white has settled and Andrew is now caught between the wall and the Mechanic's gun, pressed snugly against his forehead. He's hissing at Andrew, probably trying to get some information on who they are and what they want now that he has him at his mercy. Uriah waits for Thema to see what's going on, but she looks determined on killing her victim, now kicking at his head and wow, Uriah is not going to look again, because that does not look like a head anymore. He didn't think she had it in her, but apparently getting stabbed and almost killed makes you a little unstable. Good to know. 

He takes a deep breath. Everyone had their moment of heroism, he reasons, so it's time he paid his dues, right? He pointedly doesn't think about how it wouldn't change much for him if Andrew died, despite the voice at the back of brain telling him that maybe it would even be better, and the guy kidnapped him, after all, and they have nothing in common, really, nothing at all. Because at the end of the day, Uriah might a coward and a drug dealer, not exactly a good friend or son or – well, anything, but he's not someone who lets people die just because it's _convenient_. He's more the type of guy that does everything to prevent it. The more you know. 

So he gets out from the shadows of his hiding corner, brain blank, and runs into the carnage. He grabs the fire extinguisher, groaning a little when he gets it in his hands because god _damn_ that thing is heavy, and just as he hears the Mechanic say something akin to "maybe I should just blow -" he strikes as hard as he can. At first he thinks he didn't go at it hard enough, or maybe just missed altogether, and wouldn't that be inconvenient, but after a few seconds of hovering into place the Mechanic goes down, his head hitting the ground with a sickening crunch. 

Andrew gives Uriah a bemused look, like he doesn't really understand what just happened. Uriah pats his shoulder – urgh, is that blood? Seriously, how does this guy manage to get blood _everywhere_ on him all the time? That shit is disgusting. 

"You're welcome, bro," he says with a smile. "You can thank me later, for now I think we should," he nods towards Thema who, now that she's finished massacring her victim, is folded in two against the wall, holding her side.

"Shit," Andrew swears between his teeth. He crouches next to Thema. "Where did he hit you?"

Thema's eyes flutter open. She's shivering; she must have lost more blood than Uriah thought. "It's only a flesh wound," she says. "I have some MedicAll in my bag, that should help restructure it, you just need to get the bullet out. Hurry up, they could have called for back-up."

She looks remarkably determined, for someone who's going to have a bullet extracted from her side, Uriah remarks idly, with newfound respect. Not that – he always respected her, but he was right, he really was right when he asked her to come with them. "Call Quinn," she says again, right at Uriah. "She can help me, I'll tell her what to do. Go get the notebooks, we need to get out of here."

"But -" Uriah starts protesting. The more they leave her, the more chances there is MedicAll won't be enough.

"She's right," Andrew says. He opens the comms. "Quinn? You need to come down here. Yes, it's clear, but Thema's been injured. We need your help." He addresses Thema, "She's on her way. Are you going to be okay in the meantime?"

Thema nods, forcing her eyelids open. "Yes," she whispers. "Just give me my bag."

Uriah gives it to her, and he watches as she uncaps a syringe with her teeth and plunges it in one of the veins of her arm. "Adrenalin," she says as she catches Uriah's questioning eye. "It'll keep me up while Quinn gets there. Go."

Uriah glances behind him – Andrew is already up on his feet, ready to start their search again. Uriah hesitates. "I can't -"

"Of course you can," says Thema, and Uriah feels stupid, because not ten minutes ago he was holed up in his corner, watching as his friends fought, and now – he starts getting up, his hands on his knees. "I'll be back soon," he says, trying not to let his voice waver. "Don't die."

Thema's fingers closes on his wrist. "Hey," she whispers, smiling weakly. "That time. I was lying."

Uriah smiles back. He squeezes her hand, once. "Be back soon," he reiterates, and then he has to jog to catch up with Andrew, trying to quell the persistent worry. "Did you find anything?"

"We must not be far," Andrew says. He's wincing a little when he walks, so he must have been hit too, but if he doesn't want to talk about it, Uriah's sure as hell not going to ask. He's starting to get how Andrew works. "There aren't that many rooms left."

And he's right: it only takes a few minutes (though it helps that they don't have to hug the walls and keep their guns and ears trained for any suspect movement) before they find the room they were looking for. Unlike what they expected, the pedestal is still up, a relatively harmless-looking – but then, with those scientist types, you never know – structure, standing approximately in the middle of the room. Andrew runs to it, his eyebrows furrowed, hissing a little at the pain.

"I need your help," he says after a few seconds spent inspecting the structure. "It's heavy, I'm going to need you to move it, and get access to the safe."

"Sure."

It is heavy, but the eventually manage to dislodge it and as promised, they're welcomed by the gleaming face of a safe. It's an old model, made to be opened with only three codes, and it probably could be broken into with the right gear – Uriah had a period hanging out with thieving crews, he can hold his own in this department. "You sure you have the codes?" he asks.

"We'll see," Andrew says as he leans over the safe, just as Quinn's voice informs Uriah that she's there and she's going to start trying to remove the bullet. "Good," Uriah says with less anguish than he actually feels. 

He sits cross-legged on the ground while Andrew works in silence. It takes more time than he expected, but eventually the tell-tale click rings in the silence and Andrew exhales a quiet breath, tells him, "That was the first one." After that their success is guaranteed, and even though the anxiety doesn't leave Uriah – backup could still be on their way, after all, and Thema is far from safe – he waits with a little more serenity. All that for freaking notebooks. They better be worth-it. 

"It's done," Andrew says finally. He reaches into the safe and when his hands resurface he's holding at least five notebooks, bound in leather and looking ancient even for old human objects. Andrew opens one of them, and Uriah leans over his shoulder to see.

"Great," he says, grimacing. "They're in code."

Andrew shrugs. "It'll be fine," he says, but Uriah can feel that he's irritated too. "We'll manage. There aren't that many codes, and I know which ones my father used."

"But it'll take forever to translate all of this, and I thought you were the one who said regicide doesn't wait."

"Well, it'll have to," Andrew snaps. He slams the safe shut, and the metallic clang resounds in the immense room as though it were a door. A shiver runs down Uriah's spine. "I can't do anything about it, not any more than you. Let's just go back, and get out of this place before something else happens."

Which, as far as Uriah can tell, is the most sensible thing to do here, so he doesn't protest any more, takes the two notebooks Andrew hands him and follows him back out the room. He makes the mistake of looking back as he does, and the immensity of the room hits him unexpectedly: here is the farming area, and from up close it looks about twenty times more terrifying than it had on Thema's screen, almost as though it had been used to –

"Well – are you coming?"

Uriah quashes down his suspicions. It's not going to help, anyway. "Sure, sorry."

The way back is considerably more tense. It does seem a little futile to have done all this just to acquire a few crummy notebooks written in code, but there is something else, Uriah can feel it – something that's bothering Andrew, and if he was still doubting that Andrew had actual feelings this would make him reconsider, because this is personal, there are no two ways about it. Uriah doesn't ask purely because he's certain that Andrew wouldn't tell, but he tries to project as much compassion as he can without actually opening his mouth. 

It's only as they grow close from where Thema and Quinn are, their voices filtering distantly in yet another grey corridor, that Andrew stops him with a hand on his arm. 

"Thank you," Andrew says, looking him clear in the eye. "For saving my life."

Uriah rolls his eyes. "Yeah, well, don't sprain yourself."

And that's it. Quinn perks up as soon as they come close, her hair tied in a messy ponytail and her hands stained with blood. 

"Is it done?" Andrew asks. 

She nods, pointing to a bullet resting on the ground, at her side. Thema's still not looking so good, but Quinn explains that they have to wait for the MedicAll to take effect, she should be alright within twenty-four hours. 

"Thanks, Quinn. I'll carry her back," Uriah suggests, rejecting Thema's protests. "It's the least I can do."

Quinn packs everything back into Thema's bag, and Uriah notices that she's trying not to look at the blood on her hands, but in a strange way, like it doesn't bother her but could maybe awaken something she doesn't want to face. He doesn't ask. There'll be time for confessions later. 

"You coming?" he asks Andrew when he sees him hovering near the door, his eyes fastened on the bodies on the Mechanics. 

Andrew nods, not looking up. "You can start without me. I'll join at the car."

Uriah nods. It's probably better not to ask and besides, Thema needs to be put into a bed sooner rather than later, not to mention Quinn whose reactions are always unpredictable and occasionally dangerous. Outside the facility the sky is darkening, stricken with purple and red, and the desert seems even more unfriendly than before. They have no difficulty finding the path, and then there's nothing to do but walk, the dust coarse and uncomfortable on their clothes. Thema doesn't talk, her arms winded around Uriah's neck; occasionally a moan slips through her clasped teeth, and Quinn's hand finds her place at the back of Uriah's neck, resting against Thema's fingers. They're about halfway back, dust clinging to their blood-damp clothes, weighed down by the bags and weapons, when Andrew jogs back to them. Uriah's given up to carrying Thema on her back – they would never make it all the way back to the car – and is now only supporting her with his arm, holding her up. He glances over at Andrew, crossing Quinn's eyes as he does. Andrew's sleeves are soaked with blood up to the elbow, the color stark and sickening, dripping a little on his pants. His gun is hooked at his belt, and he doesn't look at Uriah, doesn't offer any explanation.

"Here is the car," he says at the end of the road, just as the night is starting to cover the desert at their back, carrying with it its cold wind and daunting darkness. If it were any other situation, Uriah would ask, needle, require an explanation – but his throat is parched and he's never felt more exhausted in his life, more drained of everything; Thema's head is bobbing on his shoulder, Quinn's ethereal silhouette wobbling sadly on the sandy path. Even Andrew looks worse than Uriah's ever seen him. 

He decides to wait until tomorrow to ask questions.


	8. Chapter 8

**6.**

The ride back to New York isn't exactly a picnic, especially with Andrew and Thema both injured – though Andrew insists it's nothing, which is really more trouble than it is a reassurance – but they manage. Uriah does most of the driving, since he doesn't trust Quinn to take the wheel, and Quinn doesn't ask; Andrew does a little when he feels better. Thema and him are both on a strict diet of MedicAll and painkillers. Thema's stopped bleeding only a few hours after they left the facility, but they knew it would take a while before she recovered completely. There have been suspicions that the advances in medicine effected by Mechanic scientists are engineered on purpose to heal but not make the human constitution stronger, so that they can't rival the Mechanic's own quasi-supernatural strength. Uriah's always found it over the top, but now he's not the sure. 

The point being: the trip takes them longer than it would've were they all in top health and able to use all their limbs, but they get to New York three days later anyway. They haven't encountered any danger on the way back, so if Nomi's heard of their raid on the facility she must either not have cottoned on who they are – unlikely – or have decided to hold her horses and catch them unaware, which is both more believable and very frightening. That being said, the whole situation isn't particularly reassuring. 

It hasn't been long enough that Uriah's old apartment has been rented out, but they decide not to go there anyway, no matter how much Uriah is longing for his own bed, toaster and laptop. Thema reasons with him that it would be the first place Nomi would go searching, and Uriah can't really disagree. So instead they rent, under a fake name, a crummy and largely disaffected house in the Bronx. The neighborhood isn't really friendly, but they all have guns and they'll be exponentially harder to find in a place like this one, which means that they'll also be able to do their research and planning without fear that the Militia is going to break down the door every second. 

So here they are: the house is large and looks like a model for a haunted house, but after a few trips to the nearby utility store it becomes more or less habitable. They eat out most night, lost in the immense and diverse New York crowd, the little shops blinking hungrily in the night. They make a strange group, disheveled and largely unequal, but nothing is strange in New York and people do not look at them twice – why would they, when twenty paces from there a neo-modern fashionista, glowing bright blue from top to bottom, is busy tonguing what looks like next century's new male top-model?

After Thema gets better and Andrew delivers the codes, as promised, they spend a few days trying to crack the notebooks. It's easier than expected, but doesn't teach them much, as all Andrew's father has written down is virtually useless for their mission. It would be interesting for a scientist, Uriah is sure, probably even revolutionary (there are some things in there about longevity and the Mechanics' ability to resist diseases which Uriah definitely didn't know and, now that he thinks of it, could probably help his old supplier prepare his drugs better, but that's besides the point); the fact remains that they did all this for virtually nothing, and Uriah tries not to think about that, especially when he looks at Thema who's still having trouble walking, because it makes him want to sock Andrew in the face and they all know how that would end (hint: with Uriah on the floor, probably dead).

But Andrew seems to have lost his initial frenzy, and he refuses to leave New York until they've formulated a new, bulletproof (ha!) plan. He doesn't contribute much to it, though; he spends his days absorbed in the re-reading of the notebooks, so much that Uriah ends up not knowing if it's for the purpose of finding something they might have missed or out of pure filial melancholia. Possibly the second one, which is not something Uriah wants to dwell because, well – weird. Thema is antsy about the whole thing, though, and Uriah can't say he isn't a little unnerved as well, even though he isn't one to run straight into the wolf's jaws. It would just be nice to _do_ something, is all. All this waiting around is making nervous. In fact – but that's fast becoming a pattern – the only person who seems good with the situation, barring Andrew, is Quinn. 

She floats in and out of the house. At first Uriah tries to keep track of her movements, be it only to make sure nothing happens to her, but Thema calls him out on it, tells him that she's legal and can do what she wants and, well, that's true. It's not because Andrew treats her like she manages to be simultaneously breakable, unimportant and extremely dangerous that she actually is all those things. Uriah sees her a few times a day, usually in the evening, as she comes back in. The first days she looks almost scared to see him, her eyes even wider than usual, and Uriah remembers that Andrew had said she'd worked in the Mansion, which probably means she's not used to big towns. But she doesn't ask for help and he doesn't any; after a few days she's only like she's been since Uriah met her, ethereal and whimsical but apparently unharmed. Her nights are more difficult, though. Uriah can't pretend not to hear the screams that come out the living-room – the only room that had a working bed when they got here –, or the heavy shuffle of her feet in the dawn hours. At first he thinks it's temporary, a result of the change of scenery, but after a week, as the nightmares come back to torture her like clockwork, he has to admit it's not. He does offer her help, and so does Thema, from what she's told him, but it doesn't make any difference. "The demons are inside," Quinn says, backlit by the pale dawn, her frizzy hair like a halo around her head. Her chin drops, she pales, asks to be left alone; they comply, unsure of what else to do. 

Her now-obligatory stick in her hand, Thema insists to walk through the city. Uriah knows her well enough to know that she hates confinement and generally is a very energetic woman; besides, it's not like the house doesn't mildly freak him out, so he agrees to scour the city with her without much hesitation.

Of course – "I thought we were doing tourism, Thema, not visiting the underbelly of criminal New York."

Thema snorts. It's strangely attractive – but then, Uriah finds a lot attractive about this woman. "Yeah, well, you assumed. It serves you right, really."

"Can't we just -" He doesn't bother finishing his sentence, given that she just knocked on the door. Frankly, if Uriah had to put a picture above 'fishy-looking' in the dictionary, it would probably be a picture of this house. It's almost cliché, really: the walls have humidity stains, it's in the middle of nowhere, in a neighborhood where waft smells of garbage and food alike. There are three Asian men sitting on the stairs a few paces from them, the taller one sporting an impressive cyborg eye Uriah could swear is Mechanic technology in origin. Needless to say it probably wasn't supposed to end up here. 

The door opens before Uriah protests that he'd really rather they left this place before they catch an errant bullet or meet someone Uriah would rather not want to meet. He used to be a drug dealer, okay? You make a lot of enemies in a job like that. 

"Hi," the woman who's opened the door says. Uriah isn't sure he's ever seen anything like her: her hair is red, her eyes swathed in an impressive amount of silver glitter. She's wearing a fur coat – in this heat – with spiky heels and what look like ripped leather pants, if that is even a thing. Uriah might gape. 

For all that she looks the exact contrary of that woman, though, spartan and as economically dressed as possible, Thema doesn't look even remotely fazed. She opens her arms, and the redhead tips right into them, laughing. She's short; her entire body seems dwarfed by Thema's frame, her face disappearing in Thema's shoulder. "I'm glad to see you," what must have been a musical voice, but is now weathered by years of smoking and various substance abuse, pipes up. Her words have a lilt, an accent, maybe Russian. 

"Me too," Thema beams. She waves towards Uriah, and the redhead ushers them in the house. "This is Uriah – we work together."

The redhead seems to see him for the first time, and Uriah tries not to be offended. She smiles, her eyes slitting up in a sort of peculiar smile. "Oh," she says softly, "I'm Irina." She holds out a hand heavily adorned with rings; Uriah is sure he's never met anyone like her before. 

The décor inside the house is surprisingly tame, taking into account Irina's appearance and overall behavior, at least as far as Uriah's seen. The furniture is sleek and minimalistic, chromatic tones except for a few splashes of color provided by queer objects – a painting on the back wall, a uniform on the sofa, an indigo chair near the window. A book with a violently yellow cover stands out, its broken spine open on the kitchen table. 

"Tea?" Irina offers. 

Thema agrees with a nod. "Coffee," Uriah counters absently, still preoccupied with his surroundings; when he looks up Thema gives him a sharp grin but Irina doesn't seem to mind, already placing a percolator on the oven. 

She comes back to sit at the table, the fur sliding softly on her shoulders. "So," she places her head in her palms, "what do you want from me, darling?"

Thema laughs. "Can't I visit an old friend?" and, okay – maybe Uriah isn't wanted here. This seems... intimate. 

But Irina brushes the comment off. "Of course you can, love, any time you want," she brushes her hand over Thema's, "but right now you want something. I assume you're on a mission. Back to the old mercenary days, or is this one -" she nods at Uriah as though he were, if not wholly absent, a mere hologram, "your new partner?"

"God no. I'm working for someone. But I was just passing by to see if you've got any gossip. Who knows, we could always find a gem."

The kettle whines on the stove, high-pitched. Uriah is the only one who starts, and Irina gets up to fill two mugs of tea. Thema doesn't specify how she wants her but Irina seems to know anyway. It's hard to guess how old she is, Uriah notices with no little amount of fascination – could be twenty-five, could be forty. She dips her made-up lips in her tea. "Well," she says, and the gleam in her eyes is unholy, "I did hear some rumors... but I'm not sure you'd be interested."

Granted, he doesn't know her all that well, but Uriah is positive he's never Thema like this: so comfortable in her skin, smiling, even a little flirty. When he's been around her she's always been as straight-laced as outlaws get, a sticker for the rules, almost secretive when it came to her own past. Nevertheless, it's a nice thing to see.

"Of course I'm interested," Thema smiles over the rim of her mug. 

The percolator makes a gurgling sound. Uriah motions to Irina not to stand up, she tilts her head at him in thanks. He gets his own cup and sugar, goes back to sit at the table. Irina is speaking low, leaning across the table. "You know I can't just give out information, love. I don't even know who you work for."

"The good of the general citizenry," Thema says, which, although probably generally true, will not help them. As expected, Irina just chuckles. 

"Because I still love you," she sighs. Then she blows over her tea, twice, and says, "Apparently we have new neighbors. Now I don't know if that's what you kids are into, but there's a resistance movement building up not far from here, all very hush-hush of course."

"Resistance against what?"

"You're not the only ones who fancy yourselves vigilantes, let's just say that. Those fellows are serious, though. They're commandeered one of the old labs to conduct all sorts of experiments. If I were the superstitious, I wouldn't go too close on a full moon." She grins, showing a flash of surprisingly white teeth.

"How long have they been here?"

"A few months. One of the lady scientists comes around here once in a while, I think her name is Zoé or something like that. Foreign – French. Very pretty, too. Blonde."

"Stay on track, Irina. Do they have a leader – a chief, something like that?"

Irina takes a sip of her tea. Her lipstick doesn't leave a mark on the porcelain of her mug. "I think so. I've heard of a guy called... Mouse? Couldn't say for sure. Anyway, if I say anymore I'll have to kill you – or more likely, I'll get killed. Those resistance guys are awfully nervy, in my experience."

"What's that?"

Irina's attention, before that solely focused on Thema, swivels to him once again. Uriah would be vexed that she seems to routinely forget his existence, but something tells him that it might be better for his health in the long term. "I'm sorry?"

"What is your experience? What do you do?"

Irina gives Thema a quick glance, as though to say, _who is this one_ , but Thema just shrugs. Irina decides to indulge him. "I do lots of things, pumpkin. I used to -" she nods at Thema, "swim in the same waters as this woman here, hacking and such, but I got bored. Did a bit of industrial espionage in my day," she winks, "but then who hasn't? What about you? Are you new? You look new."

"I'm not new. I -" the word they usually use is, "work in controlled substances."

Irina's grin widens. "Oh, well, we have plenty of your sort here. I'm sure you saw the neighbour coming in. Lots of things happening on those three stairs," she says with a giggle.

She forgets Uriah's presence again after that short exchange. Uriah follows the conversation between Thema and her distractedly, but they're obviously talking about shared experiences he has nothing to do with, so after a while he drifts to the big wooden library he'd spotted when he'd entered the room, through a door left ajar. The room isn't big, but it's crammed with books from floor to ceilings. Uriah would lie if he said he read often, at least on paper – he's been using computers since he was a baby, though he never could reach the level of mastery Thema and Irina obviously posses – but the atmosphere of the place is mesmerizing. The light is low and soothing, and the thick wood of the door, when it closes, isolates the room from any outside sound. Uriah breathes out; he hadn't realized he was so tense. He hasn't been sleeping that well himself, but it's hard to get any shut-eye when you could get thrown of bed by the Militia and your body would never be found. So, you know. Everything's relative.

He doesn't know how long he spends in the library. He sits into a deep plushy armchair and it's as though he were sinking into it; the next thing he knows Irina's shaking his shoulder, her rings clinking together in a musical metallic sound. "Rise and shine, darling," she says.

Uriah yawns. "Sorry," he says. "I got distracted."

"It's fine. It's a nice place, though, isn't it? My sanctuary. You're welcome to come here as much as you want if you need to take a nap," she offers, only slightly mocking. 

"Thanks."

After that it's a flurry of goodbyes. Irina makes Thema promise that she'll visit again while they're in New York, and they embrace, Irina's cheek pressed against Thema's. For the first time since they arrived Uriah spies genuine emotion in her eyes; he looks away, embarrassed. 

On their way out they spot the three Asians, still sitting in the exact same spot. Uriah gives them a short wave but they don't respond. Uriah shrugs as Thema rolls her eyes, fond. The walk back to the house is more or less uneventful. Thema doesn't say much, caught in her thoughts. 

"So," Uriah says eventually, to break the silence, "you and Irina...?"

Thema looks up, surprised, then smiles. "Oh, sure, yeah. It was a while ago, though."

"How did you two meet?"

"The usual. Worked in the same circles, we clicked I suppose."

"But?" He gives her a look, _tell me if I'm bothering you_ , but she doesn't seem to mind telling the story. She scratches the back of her neck; the sight of her fingers moving over the tattoos is almost hypnotic. 

"Well, you know how it is. You can't trust anyone in that kind of job, it always ends up ruining relationships."

"Mm," Uriah agrees vaguely. He's not really an expert when it comes to relationships; actually, he tends to steer clear from him as best as he can. As Thema is saying – this kind of job has inconveniences and well, you just never know who's sleeping with you because they actually want to and who is because they're hoping to score a little blow. Uriah's had some less than pleasant experiences that he's not eager to reiterate. 

The house is silent when they walk in. A quick sweep of the living-room (well, maybe living-room is a big word. The central area, let's say, in all that it's central. Other than that, it doesn't have many of the characteristics of an actual living-room) reveals that Quinn isn't back yet, so they go up and the stairs and knock at Andrew's door. He bids them enter; for once, he's not at the desk, poring over the notebooks, but sitting in the middle of the bed, looking at the wall in front of him. 

"Is everything alright?"

He looks up like he's surprised to see them here, even though he told them to come in only a few seconds before. "Everything's fine. I got a phone call."

Thema sits in the desk chair, her legs splayed apart. Uriah notices idly that he doesn't think he's ever seen her wear heels. Maybe it would suit her, who knows. "Anything interesting?"

"Maybe. Apparently we're not the only ones who are working to our purpose, and they have more manpower and resources than we do."

Thema hums, looking relatively unconcerned. "Maybe we should let them do the job, then. We're certainly not making much headway here."

Andrew cocks his head. He still looks distracted, but his eyes are sharp. "I don't think their morals are –"

"What are _our_ morals, I meant to ask?" Thema's leaning down over her knees. Oh, this is just what they don't need right now. Time to jump in. 

"Maybe we should just try and meet with them before we make any definite judgments, what do you say? Besides, it could be interesting. Could give us leads on what to do and how to do it, and then we can – sabotage them if we don't think what they're doing is right." Oh, it sounds so easy said like that. If he weren't the one saying it, Uriah would be ready to believe that there's half the outright danger involved. "Do you have means of contacting them back?"

Andrew nods. "Their leader goes by 'Mouse', apparently," he says, his nose wrinkling when he says the name. Great, they only know the guy by his nickname and Andrew already despises him.

Thema laughs. "Yeah, we heard of him."

Andrew's head snaps up, his eyes unusually sharp. "Did you?"

Uriah gives an amused nod. "Yeah, we paid a visit to one of Thema's old girlfriends a few blocks from here. Charming character. Said she knew of a new movement, resistance something, with scientists and the like. Mentioned your guy. Look, you have a cigarette?"

Andrew takes a pack on the nightstand and presents it to them. Thema declines, wrinkling her nose a little. The day Uriah figures her out will be a victory, there's no doubt about that. Uriah sticks the cigarette in his mouth and leans down to let Andrew light it for him. It feels strange, but Andrew does it absently, the flame bursting from the end of his fingers as though he was a strange, hollow-eyed magician.

"So," Uriah says as he exhales, the smoke uncurling in thin white curlicues above his mouth, "what are we doing? Are we going to see this guy?"

"Yes," Andrew says. "I think we can get something from them, even if it's just information."

They tell Quinn when she comes back that night but she doesn't look interested. She told them, actually, in her own cryptical and half-disengaged way, that her only involvement in the whole mission comes in the way of memories, the hazy substance that she holds back from an existence years ago now. Her affection for Andrew's mother, Sara, is the only tether that really links her to them, apart from her occasional moments lucidity-fueled attention. 

Sometimes she tells stories. They're colorful but fragmented, sometimes even horror-ish with their larger-than-life villains and their heroic protagonists, and when Uriah asks her if they're true stories she tilts her head, her mouth twisting as though to say that realism is overrated. Uriah is the only one who really pays attention to those stories: Thema gets bored more often than not, and uncomfortable, and Andrew only ever listens from afar, pretending to read or drowse in a chair removed from the group. But it seems like Quinn couldn't care less about having an audience, anyway; when she talks her voice is low and her eyes faraway, their blue dimming to a vague glow. She says the names with a reverence reserved for the dead and the immensely dangerous, her hands shaking quietly in her lap. 

She tells – and Uriah is convinced that that one is real, because of how vivid, almost hurtful, the words are in her mouth – the story of a young girl growing up in a Polish family in her native Tennessee, spending a happy, dry childhood in the hay-colored country with her sisters. It really is the American dream: a healthy, ruddy-cheeked girl, leaving home at fifteen to try her luck in the big city, and then – well, then the story takes a turn for the darker, and that's when Uriah leans in to listen more carefully, because there's no change in Quinn's intonation, just her eyes that get even more blank, deader. Then, she says, she's recruited by the Mechanics to work for the government, and doesn't that sound like a good job? Secretary in the Presidential Mansion. Of course it's all hush-hush and there are a hundred discretionary agreements to sign, but what does that mean when you get a six-figure salary, a girl like her, who's always paid attention to the price when she eats out? 

(Had she be born somewhere else, Uriah could tell her – and doesn't –, she would have heard about this kind of job. Where he grew up, the girls talked about it in school, said it was like being a priestess; said when you went inside that mansion you never really got out, said it was the sort of job that was a great honor and a great danger at the same time, but that they picked inexperienced girls from the country because those were the ones with closely-shorn hair who obeyed whenever they saw a Mechanic without really thinking, because that's the way it works. People like her don't ask questions.)

And then – but she's tired, she says. She's going to sleep. Despite himself, Uriah admires her, for going to sleep every night knowing that the same nightmares are going to plague her and make her scream. But then she probably doesn't have a choice, does she? She said she didn't sleep much in Captiva, spent her night padding around the kitchen with half-shut eyes, drinking coffee in darkness, the sea-borne air coming in from the open windows, but the city is taxing, puts you to bed itself every night. 

"You should go to sleep too," Thema says as she makes her way upstairs, patting Uriah's shoulder. Uriah nods.

He doesn't, though; he waits until Andrew moves, and when he doesn't, Uriah stays too, trying to get used to the silence. It's easier here somehow, because of all the bluster outside, in the street. Uriah doesn't feel as much like has to ramble to fill the blanks; he can let himself go, unwind, in a sense. Well, maybe not –

"What happened to your mother?" Let it not be said he didn't try. He tried. So sue him if he still has questions; he's literally never met someone with that many secrets, it's unnerving.

Andrew looks up, blinks. He extracts himself from his chair, and Uriah feels guilty for about half a second that he's effectively chased him. "Sick," he says shortly, before leaving the room.

Uriah chews on that for a few minutes, and then he shuts off the last lights and falls on what makes office of bed for him, a ratty mattress on the ground of one of the deserted bedrooms. It's oddly comfortable; the noise of the urban night streams in, reassuring, like a lullaby. It'd been a while since Uriah had felt like an orphan, but it's not entirely uncomfortable. His dreams are hazy, bits and pieces of his own childhood, only the good memories. 

*

It's two days later when they finally go out to meet the 'Mouse' in question. Uriah doesn't ask Andrew how he managed that, or even why the guy called him in the first place – he's not stupid, he knows it's probably not a wrong number –; in fact, he's learning to live by the philosophy that the less, the better off he probably is. Thema, who's always been less curious than him, seems to do fine following the same motto, so Uriah hangs close to her and follows Andrew's lead. 

The building is pretty much the definition of nondescript, which is probably good when you're a resistance movement but doesn't lend much credibility overall. The big, square shadow swallows them as soon as they come close, and for a few paces they hang in the ambiguous shadows, nodding at a few dark figures who skirt carefully around them. Uriah is starting to reconsider his decision to follow in the first place – let's be honest, he's not even sure what they're doing anymore – but Thema drags him along and when has he ever been able to resist her? Exactly. 

They eventually reach a blocky steel door which doesn't seem intent on opening for them any time soon. But Andrew doesn't show signs of irritation, and sure enough, a few minutes later a young man approaches them. His hair is swept back, longer than is probably cautious, and he's smiling at the ground, then at Andrew's chest when he reaches a hand out. "Hello, sir. I'm Feliz."

"Don't call me sir," Andrew says as he returns the handshake.

Feliz shakes all their hands, though he doesn't seem remotely as impressed with the rest of them as he had with Andrew. Yet another story he probably won't ever tell them, Uriah ponders. 

The inside of the building is comparatively much more what you'd expect of an outlaw organization. It's buzzing with people, a constant hum of hurried conversation, people leaning over desks, juggling phones, computers and other gadgets Uriah could probably identify if he looked close enough. Once in a while someone with a white blouse will cut through the crowd and the whispers dull slightly, just for a second; then they reach the end of a corridor and the noise starts up again. Uriah remembers the scientists Irinia had mentioned, and he wonders what exactly they're here for, what they're researching for. There seems to be a lot of science involved in this story, actually, what with the notebooks and that laboratory. Uriah had always figured the Mechanics were a straight-laced problem, your usual species of rebellious robots taking their revenge on their creator, but maybe there's something more to it. 

"If you'll just follow me," Feliz says. 

Eventually they're herded into a sort of waiting room. For once, Thema's the one who's drifted, instead of Quinn, so it's just the three of them in those little chairs, Andrew once again preoccupied by his copies of the notebooks. He looks like he'd rather not be disturbed, but it would be a known fact if Uriah actually cared about this kind of things, right?

"Hey," he says. Andrew pretends not to hear him. Ha. How futile. "Hey. You never told me why you really want to get Nomi."

He doesn't know why he's whispering, actually: from what he's gathered, that's exactly the aim this whole crowd of people is working towards. Still, you can never be sure, right?

Andrew looks up purely to glare at him. Quinn reclines on her chair and rakes her fingers through her hair and seriously, the way she manages to keep it permanently messy even when it's that short is a feat. "You know why," Andrew snaps. 

"I don't. You said you don't want tyranny, which is all good, I don't think anyone does, but that doesn't exactly qualify you to embark on a heroic suicide mission around the country, does it?"

"You saw me. I wasn't exactly laying low before."

Uriah tilts his head, conceding the point. "Touché. But," he adds before Andrew has the opportunity to go back to pretending to be studious, "what did you see on that Mechanic's phone?" He lowers his voice. "You know, the one you..."

Andrew glares even harder, if that's possible. "I know who you're talking about. It was nothing."

"It didn't seem like nothing."

Andrew sighs. "If I tell you this, will you leave me alone and promise not to ask any more question, at least for today?"

Uriah grins. "Such naiveté. It's charming."

"Well, if you must know, the guy in question was an emissary for the Mansion. He was here to check on – I suppose you heard of the Mechanic Muders? Well."

Uriah's eyes widen. "You –? No. Wow, dude."

Andrew rolls his eyes. "Don't tell me you didn't get that. I killed three of them in front of you, how could you not get that?"

"I don't know, I guess I just -" _didn't want to admit to myself that you were_ actually _a serial killer_ , he doesn't say. 

"Well, anyway, he was going to talk to her. I was there on an assignment, I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. And then –" _you showed up_ , Uriah deduces from the pointed look, _and everything went to shit_. "I had to adjust my plans."

"An assignment from whom?"

Andrew doesn't answer, so Uriah tries another one. "But that only means you were planning to do this anyway, even if you weren't planning to do it now. Why?"

"I made a promise to someone."

Uriah would completely not be above asking who that person is and why that promise is so important, but fortunately for Andrew, Feliz comes back with his floppy hair and honest grin, and tells them Mouse is ready for them. And seriously, whose villain name is Mouse? You could choose anything, and then – 

"What kind of a name is Mouse, anyway?" he whispers to Andrew. Andrew glares at him to shut up, and Uriah his hands up in mock-peace.

They're led away from the house, all the way through the building until a big office. Feliz smiles at them as he knocks, looking a little nervous. They're bid come in; Quinn touches Feliz's wrist, circling her fingers around for a quarter of second, and he looks first bemused, then vaguely freaked out, then soothed. "Come in," says a voice behind the door. 

The most impressive thing about that office is, well, the office itself. Uriah isn't the tidiest guy, but that level of mess requires talent. There are things everything, the clutter almost reaching the ceiling; the one desk there is at the far end of the office is entirely covered with papers spilling on all sides, with on the middle a blinking laptops wired to all sorts of machines Uriah isn't sure he wants to know the function of. There are books and plastic models and cups of coffee, pens and dirty clothes on every available surface, the floor is impossible to navigate. If someone asked Uriah right now, he would say the person in there either lives inside that room and never goes out, or is a bear. 

A tuft of hair emerges from behind the desk. Not a bear, then. 

"Hello," says a voice, childish and sharp – it belongs to a very young man, eighteen at most, with a shock of black hair and thin silver-rimmed glasses. Everything about him spells genius and Uriah doesn't trust him, not one bit. "Hello," he repeats. "I'm Rick Cho. Why don't you gentlemen – and the lady – sit? I'll be there in a minute." He points to an obscure point in the horizon until Uriah and Andrew realize that they're supposed to find chairs. They grope around them until they finally unearth two; Quinn, of course, is already folded on the narrow windowsill, all knees and elbows. 

Rick does – whatever he does – for a few more minutes before sauntering up to them. From closer on, he actually looks like the tidiest thing in the room: his jeans are pressed and his shirt is white, which seems a feat in such an environment. Frankly, Uriah would have expected at least a few coffee and ink stains. What does he even _do_ in this place? 

Rick sits on the edge of a low table and reaches up to shake their hands. Sitting in a position of inferiority doesn't seem to phase him, which is strange in itself; all the fishy authority types Uriah's never met – and he has met a lot, in all the bad situations he managed to wrangle himself in – and out of –, cartel bosses and the lot, were always intent on towering over everyone to assess their power. Must mean he has another way to do that, and that's – dangerous. Better keep an eye out. Andrew seems to be thinking the same thing, at least, if the way his arms are crossed over his chest is any indication.

"You're not Mouse," he says blankly. 

Rick Cho's mouth quirks into a smile. "I'm not," he nods. "Why? Was it him you wanted to see?"

"He called me."

"He did. I thought you wanted to see the leader of this operation, which is what I am. So," he opens his arms jokingly, "voilà."

"You're a kid," Andrew says again. Uriah resists the urge to drop his head into his hands, because – really? This is how he does diplomacy? Wasn't he smoother when he kidnapped Uriah? Maybe he romanticized the whole thing, after all. 

But Rick just laughs. "I am quite young, yes. Though not much younger than you, I'd hazard? And I can guarantee you – not that I need to – that I conduct my affairs with success."

Uriah figures it's as good a time as any to jump in. "So what do you do, exactly?" Which is not entirely a deception, but still: it's not like they were going to come here without any intel, and he and Thema went back on the street, this time accompanied by the two others, though Quinn sometimes got lost in the busy streets when someone caught their attention. From what they gleaned from the refuse of their mixed pasts (Uriah carefully didn't ask any questions; he wouldn't have liked to answer the ones they could've had about his own friends, after all), the Resistance has been around for about six months. They move locations often, and – yes – they have heard of the leader, a Rick Cho, Ivy League child genius who majored in both Economics and Anthropology _egregia cum laude_ , and then, after a brief stint working for the government, faked his own death in order to work for the other side (that one did actually ring a bell, Uriah remembers reading an article in the _Times_ about the tragic death of one of the children of the nation). A few of these last few months' outstanding terrorist attacks were, if not their doing, done with their help and funding. If word of mouth is true, they're doing experiments on Mechanics to try and see how they can find a weakness in their biological make-up they could use to take down at least Nomi and Asta. Widespread belief is that the others aren't actually that bad, but the fact is that no one really knows, given that they reign supreme pretty much everywhere and after the first debacles, most people have learned to lie low and cut their hair close. ('Those suckers don't die,' Uriah remembers vividly one of his parents' neighbors whispering, his face marred red and blue in the low light, 'they just don't die. That's not natural.')

Rick isn't fooled. "I think you have an idea," he says with a low smile. "And I've heard that you and I have the same goal?"

"But maybe not the same techniques," Andrew cuts shortly.

Rick's mouth doesn't open when he laughs. Uriah knows this kind of trick by heart, hilarity that shows only the front teeth, shark-like and dangerous. "I don't think the author of the famous Mechanic Murders has any say about methods, what do you think?" He claps his hands. "But I'm being a bad host. Do you desire something to drink?"

"Water," Quinn pipes up from her spot on the window. "Cold water."

Rick's eyes slide on her, then linger, like he'd already seen her but had forgotten to actually pay attention, had thought she was only another one of the many trinkets that litter his office. It's rude, if you ask Uriah. "And who are you, may I ask?"

Quinn replicates the exact smile that was on his face a few seconds ago. It's eerie, doesn't reach her eyes, and Uriah kind of wants to hug her. "Me?" she says. "I'm the secret weapon."

Rick doesn't ask further, which is probably a good thing because Andrew is leaning forward in his chair, looking vaguely alarmed, and Uriah is going to wager it's better if Rick doesn't actually know what their secret weapon is.

"What about you, gentlemen?"

"We'll be fine," Andrew says, just as Uriah asks for coffee because seriously, it sounds like he's going to need it to survive the conversation. He's only up for threats disguising as banter with a serious amount of caffeine in his blood.

"Get your stories straight," Rick says, amused but not unkind, but he saunters off his table and pops his head out the door, probably to request what they asked for.

When he returns his face is significantly more serious. He hands Quinn her water and Uriah his coffee, which Uriah unceremoniously guzzles down, not caring about burning his tongue. God.

"You know," he starts. Deliberately or not, it's the exact moment Quinn decides to slurp loudly, and then smiles when Rick throws her an annoyed glance. "You know," he says more forcefully, his youthful face crinkled up, "I do admire your work," he tells Andrew. "You used... a saw, is that it?"

"Miniature," Andrew says, and Uriah can't determine if he's proud or not, but he isn't sure he wants to know.

"Yes," Rick nods. "Impressive work, very graceful." His face hardens. "Not to mention you're getting us rid of this swine. Really, there should be more of you. But."

"But you're taking over the business, is that it?" Andrew asks. The thing about him is, he radiates authority without even moving. There's something about the slant of his his unsmiling mouth and the maturity in his shoulders, even though he's as young as he is, as if he was bearing his parents' strength with him, a cannibal foetus.

"Trying to," Rick says with a loose shrug. "Mostly me and my people are trying to figure out how to free our fellow citizens from the menace that is Nomi and her sister. She's the one who pulls the strings, you know," he adds to no one in particular. At the window, Quinn makes a choked-up, furious noise.

"And you're planning on doing that how?"

"The same as you, Andrew, a lot of work and ingenuity. We're trying to make the most damage we can, but this is a big country and the Mechanic hold is strong. We're –"

"What are your scientists working on?" Andrew cuts him off.

"Going right to the point, I see." Rick licks his lips. "I'm afraid I can't disclose that information until we know each other a little better. I developed a theory which I think will allow us to –"

Uriah is not remotely interested in what theories the little brat has developed which will allow him to _anything_ , but he'd have thought Andrew would be. Which is why he's surprised when he stands up, grabs his arm and tells him, "We're leaving."

Uriah suspects that the surprise that registers on Rick's face is very similar to the expression he is currently wearing. "What?"

"Sorry," Andrew says to Rick, not sounding sorry at all, "but if all you have for us is mind-games without any real answers, we have other, more important things to do."

Rick's face crumples into indignant anger. Uriah half-expects him to utter a movie villain-esque _how dare you –!_ but he recovers soon enough, gestures to the chairs. "Of course, I'm sorry. I'm sure we can work together."

"Can we? All I've seen is a lot of people running around not doing much. I've been killing Mechanics for years on my own, and I think I've got a better track record than your little 'organization' here. So unless you've got something actually substantial to show us, we have nothing to say to each other, and you've wasted my time."

Rick's face reddens visibly. Quinn lets out a little chuckle, and yeah, Uriah totally agrees. How is it that guys with Iqs that high are so easy to trick into doing exactly what you want, honestly? (Well, okay, the thing about killing Mechanics is still super freaky. Not that he didn't _know_ , but he didn't – the usual drill. He's never been all that into irrational hatred for any species, really.)

"You need us," Rick says, which – even Uriah can tell they don't, honestly. If they managed to take out nine mechanics on their own in the freaking desert, they can probably handle the rest of this operation. "You're not going to achieve anything with your pathetic four-man crew."

The look Andrew directs on him is icy and frankly impressive in its utter disdain. "I think we're going to take our chances."

*

The corridors are winding and multiple and no one asks her what she's doing here even once. In the end it feels almost like walking through the city with an added thrill, the tiny bite of adrenalin that comes from doing something you probably shouldn't be doing. Thema would be lying if she said it's not what she's searching for more often than not; if it wasn't she wouldn't have quit school to try and live the high life, wouldn't have ended up where she is now, a lone mercenary with too much in her brain and too little in her bank account. 

Which is why she's here. There is probably a little heroic instinct to it too, she's not going to lie – and besides, anyone who says they don't want to cut the grass under their local tyrant's feet is probably lying, or amoral, or both –, but most of it is genuine need of compensation. It's been a while since she's been on a real job, and the funds were melting faster than planned. So – 

So Uriah showed up at her door, that's what happened. After three years, like nothing had happened, like they hadn't been sending each other postcards once every ten months, he showed up at her door and asked if she was in to go on an adventure. Typical. 

She likes him, anyway. Sure, it took time, and it's not like she's going to say it to anyone, but she does like him. There's just something about him, the way it doesn't take much for him to admit that his bad boy swagger is ninety percent job necessity and ten percent misplaced ego, the way he always rushes headfirst into everything that seems the slightest bit interesting – just something about him. It helps that he's so young and, honestly, fit. Not that she is going to make that mistake again, because she isn't, but it doesn't hurt to look.

And now she's here, in the lair of what is apparently a resistance organization whose aim is to off Nomi, and honestly when Thema thinks about it the whole thing seems ridiculous and like something out of the thrillers she likes so much, but – why not, you know? Thema understands, maybe better than a lot of people, how noxious the Mechanics are for the economy – for the country, full stop. She's met plenty of those people who try to spin the Awakening into a saving grace, and say the sacrifices they have to make to accommodate their presence – and dominion – are necessary, that the two species will eventually be able to live in harmony, and she knows just how bullshit all those lies are. She doesn't hate the whole species like Andrew seems to, but she's not blind either. She knows what the Awakening was: a colonization, pure and simple. And now, well, if they can't get rid of the disease they'll get rid of its source, and Nomi is clearly a good way to start. Andrew's personal feuds is only interesting to her in that it provides her with finances and him with something to funnel his obvious rage into.

She follows a group of three white-coated people into a corridor, and the crowd thins instantly, the light lowered to a dim glow. Okay, she's on the good track, then. She follows them until they cotton up, and when they do she ducks into the nearest room which, fortunately, turns out to be a recreation area. Thema tries to act as at home as she can, even though there is only one woman there, bent over a stack of what looks like Very Important Documents ™, and walks right to the coffee machine to pour herself one. She needs, anyway. 

She sips her coffee in silence, trying to figure out a way to continue her investigation and maybe even snag a white coat off someone to be more inconspicuous, when the scientist looks up, her glasses sliding off her nose. Thema's first thought is that she's cute in a messy sort of way, with a blond ponytail helf up with a pencil and those wiry glasses; the second is that she's going to have to make conversation, and thank god she has a degree in Chemistry.

"Um," the scientist says, "hi. Do I know you?"

Which is not, sadly, flirting but probably an inquiry as if whether Thema actually works here. Shit. Time to wing it.

"I work upstairs," Thema says with her best attempt at a winning smile, "I'm a secretary. I just heard the coffee was better here, I thought I'd take my chances."

The scientist's face splits into a smile. "Oh, I'm not sure that's true." She nods to Thema's cup. "What do you think?"

Thema laughs. "Yeah, still tastes like cat's piss. Well, I tried." She holds her hand out; better make the best of this while she's at it. "I'm Carol, by the way."

"Juliet," the scientist says, her smile reaching her eyes and crinkling at the corners, and really, it's a shame they can't linger.

Thema sits at the table, her cardboard cup warm between her palms. "So, Juliet," she says with a flirty smile, and lo behold, she was not mistaken, Juliet's cheek heat up a little, "what are you working on these days?"

"Can't talk about it, sorry."

"Oh, from one terrorist to the other, what's the difference?"

Juliet seems to consider it. "It's just – well, you know. What we've been researching since Mouse got here, but we're still missing an essential component, so we're working on that."

"Don't you get bored staying in those labs all day?"

Juliet gives a loose shrug, her shoulders pointy through her blouse. "You get used to it. Besides, it's pretty fascinating, preparing all those Mechanic models, I can see why –" she colors, "sorry, I shouldn't talk about it."

Thema leans in, lets her hand brush against Juliet's in a way that seems mostly accidental. "No, tell me, I love science. It sounds really interesting."

"It is. We – when we get the – this component I was telling about, when Mouse brings it to us, we're going to be able to reproduce approximately eighty percent of the Mechanic body types that came out of the DEDALUS laboratories. I mean, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but in a month we could have half the government organizations infiltrated. A this rate it would be a child's game to force Nomi to abdicate, or even to –"

Something must be showing on Thema's face, because Juliet stops talking and she frowns. "Hey, are you okay?"

Thema gives a weak smile. "I – sure, I'm fine. It's just, it's impressive, that's all. All the work you guys have done."

Juliet ducks her head. "Yeah. I should get back to it, anyway."

Thema circles her wrist lightly with her fingers. "No, stay a little more, right? We could –"

"Sorry, I really have to go," Juliet says with an embarrassed smile. "But -" she colors up again, digs into the stack of papers she's now hoisting up in her arms and comes up with a card, on which she scribbles something, "this is my personal number. If you want to... talk about it some more."

And then she's gone, vanished with a whiff of floral perfume and the white tail of her lab coat. Thema reclines in her chair, the coffee now cold between her palms. Well. Talk about a discovery. Now all she needs to do is find her way back, and tell the others. 

*

Rick, being the immensely predictable child genius he is, insists on them meeting his second in command before they leave, obviously to convince them that they're better with the wide expertise and manpower of his 'little operation', which was probably Andrew's plan all along, even though he only glares at Uriah when offered a fist-bump and a "Dude, well played," whispered from the side of his mouth. 

It only takes about twenty minutes of awkwardly sitting around glowering at each other before the door opens and a tall, severe-looking woman comes into the room. Uriah feels Andrew instantly tensing up next to him. Okay, then. 

"You're Mouse," he says, half to clarify the situation and half because it really is funny that someone like that would use that name. Like, really? Panther, why not. Mouse – yeah, no. 

But the woman just bows her head and reaches out a hand. "You can call me Uma," she says genially, and Uriah is immediately convinced that it's not her real name. He shakes the proffered hand, not offering any name in return. You never know, and besides, they're in the proverbial rats' nest, so better be as cautious as possible. 

Uma shakes Quinn's hand as well, walking over to the window when Quinn doesn't bother dismounting it, and when she comes back she looks Andrew right in the eye, something Rick Cho hasn't dared to do since Andrew walked into the room.

"What are you doing here," Andrew says to her, his jaw tight, ignoring her hand. Behind Uma Rick's eyes widen, his face crumples again when he realizes he's been left out of the loop. 

"You didn't think I made you take all those chips for nothing, Andrew," Uma says, and okay, Uriah has no idea what's going on here. How do they even know?

"I'm sorry," he cuts in because – well, because he's curious and he wants to know, "what is going on here?"

Uma makes an innocent face that even a blind man could tell is fake. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought Andrew had told. He used to work for me."

The thought of Andrew working for anyone is frankly hilarious. "As what?"

"An assassin," Uma says bluntly. She glances at Andrew, "Unless you prefer a more metaphorical term, that is. How would you say... a professional handler, maybe?"

Andrew glowers so hard Uriah is pretty sure Uma is going to have burn marks at the end of this conversation. "Why did you call me. What do you want."

"Did you really I didn't know who you were all this time, what you wanted to do? I don't care about your little quest for glory, Andrew. Whoever you want to avenge, your mother or your father or, well, anyone really, it's none of my business, and you are free to go on your way and do what you want. You can even work with us if that's your wish. But you have something that belongs to me, and now it's time to give it back."

At this junction, Uriah is just hanging back and watching the show, because for one, he's never seen anyone talk to Andrew like this (though, granted, he hasn't seen many people talk to him period, but he'd been imagining those conversations would involve the other party mostly ducking their head and cowering in fear) and second, if he gets involved someone is probably going to tear his head off. Rick looks pissed off but like he's having the same thoughts – smart man, Uriah thinks. 

Andrew is opening his mouth to say something, probably something interesting and incendiary, when Thema, of all people, bursts into the room. Uriah barely has time to notice how pretty she is with red high on her cheeks, she's been obviously been running, when she zeroes in on Andrew and unceremoniously leans in to whisper something in his ear. 

Something he doesn't like, apparently. He turns back to Uma. "So that's why you want the chips? You want to insert them back into new Mechanics? Didn't it go through mind that that's exactly what lost us in the first place?"

Rick opens his mouth, "Actually, we –" but Uma interrupts him. "This has nothing to do with you, Andrew, but if you must know, we've gone to extraordinary lengths to assure that those Mechanics, if that's what you choose to call them, never acquire the ability for independent thought. They'll be monitored from our very labs, watched twenty four seven by our scientists. If you think the way to go about this is to just barge into the Mansion and – do whatever you intend to do, I'm sorry to say, but you're wrong."

If Andrew wasn't the completely repressed person he is, Uriah is pretty sure he'd be screaming by now. "This isn't your choice to make. You're running into another disaster, and I won't participate into this."

"I'm sorry to say you don't have a choice," Uma says smoothly.

Before they even have time to react, Rick presses a button on his desk (though how did he find it in this gigantic mess, that's the real question) and two suspiciously guard-like individuals burst into the door. Thema draws her gun, quick as lightning. Uriah didn't have the presence of mind to pack one, so he just stands there slack-jawed while Andrew and Thema move back to back and Andrew digs into his pocket where something probably explosive and incredibly health-damaging is waiting for the guards.

Andrew turns to Uma. "Sorry," he says, and for the second time of the day it sounds more like he's saying fuck you than like he's actually sorry. "Can't do anything for you."

"Resistance is useless, Andrew," Uma says quietly, sounding every bit the movie villain she apparently is. "There are hundreds of people in this building, all devoted to our cause. You're not making it out of this building with those chips, I can guarantee you that."

Andrew laughs loudly, almost a bark. "What – you think I'd have taken them with me? Who do think I am, seriously?"

"I think you're someone who wouldn't take the chance of leaving something that precious behind. I think that I've seen you before, I know you, and you always carry those brands with you."

"They mean something to me. Your chips don't."

Uma takes a step forward, and Andrew doesn't recoil, even though he visibly wants to. Behind him, Thema's gun is pointed at the first guard's forehead, keeping him for getting further into the room. "You can help us," Uma says, looking at Andrew like they're the only two people in the room. "I know you don't believe in my methods, but you do'nt have to participate. Just give me those chips and tell yourself I paid you for them. You don't have to feel guilty – not anymore than you already do. Just give them to me, and then we can go our separate ways, see who achieves our common goal first."

Andrew bares his teeth, but he seems frighteningly calm now, like he's tamed all the rage he had and condensed it into this single-minded determination. "I. Am. Not. Giving you. Those chips. The only thing you're doing to fight the monsters is creating more monsters."

Uriah sees it before everyone: Thema's gun, ducking down, something flickering in her eyes, maybe doubt. "Look," she says, turning over to Andrew, "maybe you should consider it. I mean, it's not a bad idea, it's just –"

"What are you going to do when you've flooded the country when your fake Mechanics, huh? You're just going to let them run around because they can useful and beautiful and robots are harmless anyway? You know what that did last time, right? Do you all not remember what it felt to have our homes invaded by those monsters, to have to cut our hair to show just how inferior they'd made us, to have to surrender all our jobs and our privileges to people who aren't even people? Do none of you remember that? Am I the only one who's trying not to repeat this, not to make the same mistake?"

If Uriah has ever seen Andrew that angry, he can't remember when. His eyes are incensed, glaring dagger, his throat and the skin of his face red. The fist that's visible against his hip is white from being curled so tight, his body tipped forward until he's screaming to Uma's nose, their faces inches apart.

"Anyway," he says, and this time his voice is so cold it feels like he's ice to the core, one of them with their metal hearts, "I don't have them anymore."

"What do you mean?" It's Uma's turn to look incensed.

"I mean, I don't have them. Not here, not somewhere else. I destroyed them."

"Why?"

"I thought you might do something like, you or someone else, try to use their own technology against them. I know how that ends. I didn't want it to happen."

"It wasn't your choice!"

"Regardless, what's done is done. So are you going to keep your thugs pointing their guns at me and my crew, or are you going to let us go?"

"I ought to have executed for what you did," Uma hisses.

"I thought only the bad guys did that." And, in fact, no one apart from Uma herself, even though they do seem angry and not very inclined to put their weapons down, seem on board with the execution. Good to know. "Or maybe you're rethinking your esthetics, now that you've created robots who can walk and talk, huh? Sounds familiar?"

"Get them out of there," Uma yells. She doesn't look so composed now but then, Uriah probably wouldn't either if his plans for world domination 2.0. had been thwarted by a team of near-teenagers. The guards usher them out the door and through the corridors, manhandling them with all the anger Uma is probably feeling. Thema spots the Juliet the cute scientist on the way and winks at her as she goes, leaving Juliet to look adorably confused.

When they're outside, on their knees in the ground before the immense gray building, silence falls on them like a ton of lead. Quinn is the first to get on her feet, brushing the dust from her jeans. She looks down at Andrew, her eyes blank. "So you're an assassin?"

Andrew shrugs. 

No one says anything; the revelation hangs heavily on them with the sum of all the others, all the things they've learned about this man they've been following almost blindly, and they realize that there's no way out but they could've peered more closely, asked more questions to know what exactly they were getting themselves into. Andrew stands up and extends a hand to Thema, which she doesn't take. His face closes off; he turns around, nervously shaking a cigarette out of the pack he keeps in his pocket at all times. 

"We should get back," he says with the first exhale of white smoke, looking everywhere but at them. 

They nod, and follow him. In the darkened city streets they look like a team of executioners, or maybe, if you peer closely, like an army on their way to war.


	9. Chapter 9

**7.**

What does it take to be a good raconteur? Quinn would be hard pressed to say. The fact is that she doesn't concern herself with her listeners when she tells stories – they're merely the extension of something that goes on inside, a deeper and more painful process that she shares only for fear of burning herself inside out. But Uriah, in particular, seems interested by those strange and cut-up tales, and soaks up the juxtaposed memories she spouts out with peculiar delight. It gives her a certain sort of satisfaction, that adds to the urgent and selfish wonder that she's being _heard_ , and thus exists; and so she tells more, crumbs of her story she'd never dared to give anyone, because she knows just how unbelievable, how unusual and cruel they are.

Since she is the only one preoccupied with those questions, she has taken upon herself to think about the house they just left, in New York, the big and windy, uncomfortable refuge. It still surprises her that people can leave places and not wonder how they cope with the emptiness. This one must howl in the wind, dreaming maybe of them, gone onwards on their mission to sunnier hideouts. Were they are now the light and forced cheer endlessly hurt Quinn, she stays inside almost stubbornly, to protect herself like she's trying to learn how to do. 

"What do you want to know?" she asks to her attentive audience. Uriah is lounging in the sun, Thema sitting next to him, closer than is probably necessary. 

_Have you ever seen the sea?_

Pity they never asked, huh? So much damage could've been avoided, and now look at her; with her broken head, and broken heart, a poor little grown-up girl for whom happiness means revenge.

"I don't know," Uriah says, squinting from behind his sunglasses. They're supposed to be watching the Mansion, but truth is the cameras are doing most of the work – the computers and motions sensors, which Thema hacked into, are doing all the work, and they're bidding their time while they wait for something, an opening, being discovered. It should feel harder, and it is, but without Andrew they don't have the heart for heavy-headedness. They're taking risks. "Do you have any good stories?"

"What do you call good?" says Quinn, instead of, _of course I have good stories, but you'd stick your fingers in your ears, you'd be so afraid._

He shrugs. "Tell me about this," and he points to the window. Quinn's skin crawls. 

Oh, _this_ – the house, you mean, the Mansion, you mean, the place... well. Really she's proud of herself for living so well near this monstrous thing, which holds so many memories she's tried – and failed – to scrub her brain clean of. It hasn't changed much, except for the yearly coat of paint and the obligatory renovations that suit a presidential house; Quinn could still recite by heart the history of the walls, say why exactly it was important to have a place from which to govern that hadn't been tainted by human glory, fake and bloody as it usually is – somewhere _new_ , where the queen and her sister (well, queen, president, it's all the same thing these days; unofficially she's very much a sovereign) could lean towards each other and revel in their victories. She has stories about this place, a hundred thousand stories. He wouldn't like to hear them.

His eyes are wide and gleaming. Curiosity killed the cat, Quinn thinks idly. "How did you end up here?"

She shrugs. "How does –" _anyone end up anywhere?_ "I wanted to leave my home," she says. Now she'd like to return, sometimes, at least, but she promised herself she wouldn't go back broken, and well – there isn't really a way to un-break, is there?

"What happened to you?"

Seems like it's a day for loaded questions, then. But he's right: her stories are about that, she was going to tell it at one time or another. Better get it out of the way before they figure out how to tear the queen apart and then Quinn suspects the world will be a bit chaotic. 

"A lot of things," she says. Uriah's eyes light up; even though he doesn't know yet Quinn can't help but resent him for it, for feasting, like the others, on all the horror and the grime. "I did something I wasn't supposed to do."

Thema is the one to speak, "There's a vow of celibacy, isn't there?"

"Something like that." There's a contract, really, and Thema, who is smart – smarter – knows how this story ends and Quinn can see in her eyes that she's not sure she wants to listen, but stands there nonetheless, poised, ready to jump, a real warrior – ready, probably, to tug Uriah's hand to keep him from being collateral damage. There's protectiveness in her strange affection for Uriah, because he's younger and more reckless than her – or so Quinn supposes. She knows, too, that those stories are poison.

She plucks a pair of stray sunglasses – Andrew's? - from the table and turns them over in her hands. "Well, it's an old story. I fell in love with one of Nomi's assistants, a boy –" it's easy to lose the plot during that part: a boy with soft skin and a mouth like sin, gentle and kind and fierce and beautiful – "a boy. We – Asta found out after a while. She doesn't like things like that."

There's nothing more cruel than this kind of punishment, where the torturer knows the ins and outs of their victim. How long had she been Asta's secretary by then? She knew all sorts of secrets, most of them she did not care about because she was young, a bit light-headed at times but studious, barely nineteen... of course she wanted to be in love. The Mechanics have that for them that they're not human; Quinn has always suspected that they don't understand the urge for companionship, though she's sometimes questioned that belief, too, in coming into Asta's room in the morning and finding the sovereigns entangled, pressed so close it'd have been hard to tell, if asked, where the one ended and the other began. But it was always like that with them. It did not mean they were humane, or kind; only that there was something between them, an iron bound, that made them stronger.

Uriah is still watching her. Quinn swallows. "So... Jackson – that was his name – came to see me because he'd learned that they knew, from a friend in the higher circles. And he decided that we had to go, leave, you know?" They don't know. "We packed a few things, and then we started running. Of course it was stupid, you can't really get anywhere here, there's nothing but all those houses that belong to Mechanics, and besides we'd never been outside since we'd gotten here a few years before, that's a thing there, you can't see anything except the interior of the Mansion. I know it seems strange, but it's not the most cruel thing about it. You get used to... I don't know. There is a terrace, and you can go on the grounds. The property is big. You get used to the idea that there's nothing beyond, especially if you're someone like me, if you come from the country. Jackson... he was from a coal-mining town in Tennessee, his parents were one of the only people left still working in coal, managing the machines for the mines... anyway. So we waited for the night, we packed our bags and we ran. I don't know if you – we ran for hours, I think, in the dark, before they noticed we were gone. Jackson was holding my hand. I thought –"

 _I thought: he will hold my hand forever._ It was a damp night, the moon was high and the shadows of the trees were like lace on the grounds. No medication will stop Quinn from remembering that night, the way something, a tremendous weight, had seemed to lift from her heart with each stride she took to distance herself from the Mansion, the way Jackson had leaned against a tree, panting, and pulled her against him... there is nothing quite like this kind of love, Quinn knows from instinct more than knowledge, the deep and unselfish love that young people have before they've matured into beings that are able to hurt and be hurt; at an age where everything is wondrous and fantastic about love, except, in this case, its consequences...

"They found us easily. They found him, actually, before me. He... he decided that we should separate, so they would follow him. I hid for hours in the trees, and then, just before the morning came, I slipped away... I still don't know how – how I managed to make it out the grounds. How Sara found me. I don't remember that part very well, to be honest, my head – well, so many things have happened, I don't have a great memory. But Sara – that's Andrew's mother, you should see her, she's very beautiful and kind, too – Sara saved me and she brought me to Captiva. Jack's death – that was the real tragedy."

 _That_ was the real tragedy: people have said otherwise, have said that her mind was fine and she could've survived unscathed if what happened on Captiva hadn't happened, but Quinn knows better. She would've ailed, and perhaps even faded away, died, if she'd been left on that island without – without the rest of the story. It just contributes to her curse, which is fine – Quinn accepts that, more or less, has accepted it – is there any other option? 

"I'm sorry," says Uriah, looking genuinely sorry, a somewhat comical expression on his Casanova face, with his long-ish bangs and leather jacket. 

Quinn laughs, not unkindly. "Yeah."

They sit in silence for a few minutes, while they digest her life. Quinn doesn't regret telling it, not really, but she doesn't feel any better for it, like she half-imagined she would. She hasn't told this story many times, is the thing – the first time only was therapeutic, sobbing in Sara's arm as she imagined what they'd done to her love. _Did he suffer?_ she'd asked, bowled over in her savior's arm, clutching at the flesh of her arms, trying to convince her to let her run back, straight into the monster's jaws. She couldn't stop thinking about it for years, the imagining stuck with her – that's why she started taking pills in the first place, actually, and then – wondering if they'd killed him quickly, easily, like one kills wounded animals when one pities them. She tries to think he did, but it's probably untrue.

"That's not the whole story, though," she says, not because she actually wants to tell it but out of respect for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. "I'll tell you some other time."

Now he looks unsure whether he wants to hear or not, but it's too late, isn't it? One can't hear only one half of a story, otherwise it'd be unfair, both for the listener and the storyteller. Besides, they all deserve that – and if he doesn't know pain he'd better learn, though he might, in a childish and timid way, he might know pain, of course not as piercing and all-encompassing as hers but the softer sting of junkie ache, if what she gathered from half-mumbled tales is true. 

"Yeah, okay."

"Thank you," Thema whispers earnestly. Quinn nods. They don't really like each other, all things considered – because Quinn is too whimsical for Thema's tastes, and Thema's too straight and narrow to really appeal to Quinn. Quinn doesn't like anyone in this company, not the way she used to like people. But what's left of it, the anesthetized fondness, she feels for both Andrew and Uriah, Andrew because he's his mother's son and Uriah's because of he's a damned child, petulant and funny and full up with feelings, and it amuses her. Thema's different. She's on her guard. They're – they're equals, maybe, but they won't be friends. It's fine. You can't be friends with everyone. 

"You're welcome," Quinn says.

The rest of the day passes without more incidents. They all seem exhausted by this recounting, for some strange reason: tragedy always weighs heavy on impressionable minds, but even Thema drags her feet more, going about her daily coding and refocusing of the security system's cameras with some sort of weariness. Quinn doesn't care much, though. She takes a nap during which horrible dreams plague her, wake up sweating and wanting to crawl out of her skin; heaves dryly into the sink then returns to the kitchen only to glare blearily at Andrew, freshly returned from God knows where. He gives her a nod, his own kind of salute, but she doesn't return it. A glass of icy water isn't enough to restore her strength, she shuffles to the window and slumps into one of the armchairs, the only near-comfortable one. No one asks where they get the money for this, but Quinn suspects Andrew has long planned his revenge, even though he's been forced to put it into action earlier than he meant to. His furious focus masquerading as calm is one of the thing Quinn both admires and fears about him. 

She comes back to the kitchen and finds him staring at plans he devised with her help. The twist of corridors, still familiar after nearly ten years, makes a hard shiver run down her spine. She turns her head away. When she looks back he hasn't stopped working, head bent, he's covering in tiny and almost illegible scrawl one of the entrance points. 

"You won't be able to get in, you know," she says.

He looks up, weary. "No? Why?"

"Here," she points at the map, "if I remember well, there are guards at every entrance, probably more than that now. They don't only check your brand," she doesn't ask, because she knows, that he has some trick stored in for that and she'd rather not want to know what, all things considered, "they also check the ID tag, and you won't be able to counterfeit that. If you want to go in you'll need to do it the outlaw way."

It seems funny to say that, gives a slight thrill: the _outlaw_ way. He gives an exhausted chuckle. It's been hard on him, and though she has no pity to spare, she understands. The others don't know how to deal with the fact that he used to kill for a living, because their minds aren't black and white like his is. Where he sees machines and humans, they just see people. He doesn't want to apologize – and besides, they want to know why he destroyed those chips, because they – or Thema, at least – think it could've been a solution, or maybe the start of one. Quinn, ever the silent observer, remembers the slight tremor, not unlike rage, that had jolted through Thema when he'd said it, _I destroyed them_. Who does that? she'd thought.

"Shit. Well, thanks anyway."

"No problem." She sits at the table facing him, because why not. She drinks milk from the carton, like only children do, smearing some on her upper lip. He doesn't remark on it. She gulps it down thirstily, as though she's not sure she'll get to finish the glass – old habit, big family. She used to – but never mind. She's told enough stories for the day as it is.

"They're still mad at you," she says, nodding back to the living-room.

He nods. He won't apologize, and they won't either, but they don't want to agree to disagree because, well, this is all based on ethics, isn't it? You have to have a united view. Quinn understands that in a distant, slightly mocking way.

He doesn't want to talk about it, though, so she won't push him. Her only duty here is to observe and sometimes counsel, but – and thank God for it – she doesn't have her own heart in the game. Which makes it safer, of course. Thema and Uriah are closer now that Andrew isn't there to boss them around and direct them, they talk about old memories, they bicker and banter and throw things at each other. It's charming, if childish. Quinn enjoys it from a distance. Sometimes it still feels like walking in the fog like the meds used to do to her, but that's getting better, at least a little. You can't feel too connected to the world anyway, because that only means hurt.

Quinn rests her palms on the table. She does that sometimes, to calm down. She counts her knuckles, registering their color, and wonders idly if the villagers are taking care of the cat. She doubts he could survive on his own, or even in the wilderness. He's probably incapable of even hunting mice – she wouldn't be surprised, and besides he's so fat he can harldy move. Maybe he'll be dead when she comes back – if she comes back. She doesn't feel like she's in danger but she is, they all are.

"She's dead, is she?"

This time the jolt of Andrew's head is more pointed. He stares at her with wide, slightly wild eyes. "What?"

"Sara," Quinn says, rolling the r in her mouth. "She's dead, isn't she?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Andrew says, his jaw clenched. Quinn thinks he's probably not that terrible a liar in other circumstances, but this is pain too fresh and too profound to lie about.

"It's fine. How did she die?"

Maybe – maybe he's telling himself that she's still alive somewhere, lying on her stomach on her bed reading or doing some of these heroic things his mother used to do, because she's his mother, too, not just Quinn's savior. She didn't come back often, afterward, and Quinn knows, somewhere in the back of her head, that she was a witness, a pawn in her game, but it doesn't invalidate her kindness or the sheer support of her arms, her gentle face lifting the heaviness from Quinn's chest. God bless that woman, Quinn used to pray every night.

Andrew doesn't answer for a while, and then, "She was sick."

"Yes," says Quinn, for lack of something better. It seems such an unfitting death for Sara, to be sick. Quinn would rather she had been slain in battle or something equally heroic. "She loved you."

"I know she loved me," he protests, fierce.

She smiles weakly. "Well then. If you know."

He looks younger when he talks about his mother, anyway, less mysterious. Which is good: he can't go around all the time looking like the type of person who is actually behind all those Mechanic Muders, a man who unflichingly cuts into skulls that look very much like human ones, getting his hands methodically red then coming back home to his girl. That's what he used to do, wasn't it? He'd probably still be doing it, if –

"People die," Quinn says to no one in particular.

" _They_ don't." Andrew's voice is cool, like he's making a point.

Quinn doesn't ask the evident question: _does that make it alright, for you to kill them like you do? Is there something that justifies your rage, except for your mother's death? Is guilt –_

She nods, once, twice, then takes her glass and goes back to her armchair. The notebooks are in arm's reach, and absently she grabs one of them and starts to read. It's oddly enthralling, in a strange way. Quinn sighs, her head lolling backwards. When her mind is wholly taken by the diaries – and only then –, a slow peace settles over her, dulling the incessant thrumming in her chest and head to a dull invisible ache.

*

There's something in this that forces wonder: seeing the Red Queen minuscule and unconcerned on the screens, going about her daily life. If Uriah had known she could be this quiet, this _human_ , her legs folded under her as she reads without blinking, maybe he wouldn't have accepted to go assist Andrew in this mission to destroy her. At least, that's what he thinks until he remembers what she's done, the reassuring horror of the statistics that never, ever speak in her favor: her unrepentant enslaving of the entire human population, the multiple times she squashed uprisings without even seeming to care. He remembers, in fact, staring at the TV unbelievingly as she stood in front of her podium in her strict suit, her eyes dead as she said that any citizen who dared revolt against her would suffer the next fate, that they'd better submit to her now so that the country could enjoy the peace and unity it deserved, that she respected. He was barely twenty then, and had been so revolted by her cruelty that he'd felt bile rise in his sternum; and thought that she looked much more the age she was than the one she'd kept since her creation, the frigid twenty-five shared by the whole of her aristocracy.

"What're you looking at?"

Uriah turns around so fast he's afraid he might sprain a muscle. "Oh, it's you. Nothing, I was just watching, you know."

Thema hums in agreement, handing him a mug of coffee. A grimace twists Uriah's face when he dips his lips in the beverage. "It's bitter," he says. 

Thema smirks. "I take it black."

They turn their attention back to the monitoring cameras. It was lucky, but not unexpected, that the security in the Mansion was already tight and they only needed to find their way into the network to have access to the majority of it. They cover the majority of the building, including the external grounds and the entirety of the admittedly immense interior, with its dozens of bedrooms, private cabinets, drawing rooms and meeting rooms. The only place their don't reach are the bunker under the house and the queen's private bedroom. So far it hasn't hindered the plans, especially given that Quinn knows the ins and outs of the bedroom and was only able to inform them of most of the secret passages that existed in her time at the Mansion and are unlikely to have been blocked since. 

Thema takes a sip of her coffee. "Do you think we'll make it?"

Uriah shrugs. "I don't know. Do you?"

"Maybe. Whatever she's done to him, Andrew is determined to find a way to kill her, and he probably will, with or without our help. I just wonder... when all that's over, who's going to take care of this country? There are thousands of Mechanics, what will we do about them?"

"Don't you want to get rid of them?"

She hauls herself on the nearby table, thoughtful. "Of course I do, I want to get rid of _her_. But the rest of them... surely it's not their fault their leader is a tyrannical madwoman, is it? I mean, when you think about it, we're the ones who created them."

"Mm," Uriah agrees. "Well, first we have to get into this house anyway, and I don't see how we're going to do that."

"We'll figure out a way. Nomi is cocky, that's always a weakness."

Uriah laughs at that; he tips back his chair so that the back of it rests against her knees, smiles up at her, brilliant and teasing. 

She slaps the back of his head lightly. "Oh, shut up. It was, wasn't it?"

He tilts his head. "I don't know about _weakness_ , it certainly ended well enough – don't you think?"

She refuses to say more on the subject, not because she's coy but because she always on carrying out what she has to do first, is a fierce and loyal soldier no matter if her loyalty has been bought or convinced out of her.

Uriah jerks his thumb towards the screens. "I don't know why you have so much faith, anyway. Quinn told me they don't only scan the brand when you want to get in there – and that's only if you have an appointment –, they also do a retinal check for an ID number. So we're toast on that front."

"The only humans in there are..." Thema hesitates, "people like her, that's it?"

"From what she told me. And that requires intense vetting, background checks, training and all the hopla. I doubt Andrew has either the time or the patience to try and carry out a con that long."

"Pity." Thema glances out the window. They can't see much: the weather, as temperamental as it is absurd, and even moreso since the layer of ozone has completely disappeared and the atmosphere gotten worse as a result of the multiple forays into space travel that those last few years have seen, has quickly gone from brilliant sunlight to heavy pouring March rain. There are dense woods all around the property, keeping it from indiscreet eyes or neighbors; it's not hard to imagine Quinn hadn't been allowed to stray off the grounds. "I'd have liked to see how it is inside."

"You can see."

"Ah," she laughs softly, as though shaking a dream off of her. "It's not the same. But it doesn't matter."

There's more silence, and then, "Did you know he was a killer?"

Uriah winces. "Not – I mean, not exactly, but –" Because he can't keep secrets from her – from anyone, really, but she's always had more of a pull on him than the others – he tells her whole story, as faithfully as a nature like his, prone to storytelling, allows. Meeting Andrew in such a singular fashion, being forced into following, deciding to help him. She listens without really keeping still, because she never does: he follow the regular sweep of her finger against the rim of her coffee mug, the twitch of her lips. She really is beautiful – strong, even like that, openly disapproving, her lips tight and her face closed-off. 

"Why did you bring me into this?" she asks.

"You know why. I wanted to – I thought you'd be good at this. Better than me, at any rate."

A new rage animates her now; she rises, her body taut and nervous, like the story has angered her; but really he knows it's still the same anger he saw the week before, back in New York at the resistance headquarters, her shock and dismay when Andrew had said he'd gotten rid of the chips their scientists needed for their project. "He destroyed those chips, Uriah! He could have stopped this whole thing, it could've gone without all the –" she opens her arms, "all this, the stake-outs and what we're going to have to do, there's an organized resistance out there. I signed up to help him take revenge, but there was a way, and he just..."

"He destroyed them before. You heard him. He didn't know..."

She laughs. "You really believe that? I don't even know how – it's just, how can I follow a man who would to this? Those chips are in the occipital lobe, for God's sake, can you even imagine –"

He winces. "We all do what we need to do, Thema. You know that as well as I do."

"There's a limit to 'what we need to do'. This is... this is serial murder, this guy rummaged into people's -"

"Mechanics."

" _People's_ brains! How can you not find that crazy?"

"It is. It is, I know that. But we're – I mean, we don't the whole story. We don't know what she did to him."

"Exactly! We don't know _anything_. You've just been following him blindly, all this time. I can understand that from Quinn, she's obviously not right in the head, but you! Didn't you use to be a little more decisive?"

"Thema –"

"I just don't understand, that's all. I mean, apart from his name – and even that – what do you know about him? How do you even know he's not like one of those crazies who tried to kill her before? She's – she's almost invulnerable, you know that. You're going to get yourself killed, he's going to get _us_ , the four of us, killed."

He'd still been trying to convince her until then, but her sudden attack makes anger rise into his throat, and before he can think about it, "Why are you still here, then?"

She oscillates back on her heels. "When I start something, I usually see it through."

"Do you? I don't remember –"

She takes a step forward, and the memory spikes his blood, how being near her was intoxicating, especially when she was angry – for a second he can't breathe. "Don't start again with that," she snaps, her eyes dark. "It was years ago."

She's breathing heavy, so close that he can feel her on his lips, and for a second they have nothing to say and he's looking at her, the words hanging in the air with the remembrance. And then – she deflates, goes back to her window quickly, rubbing her hands together nervously. "I'll see this through," she says, "you know I will. I just don't like not knowing what I'm in for."

"Why don't you ask him, instead of me?"

"You're the one who dragged me into this. Besides, do you really believe he'll tell me anything?"

"I thought you had the means to make anyone tell you anything."

That draws a smile out of her, thin and almost malevolent. "I do."

He looks at her, trying to guess what she might do, and doesn't get his answer. He doesn't know her well enough to be sure, and yet – but their story is a strange one, full of full stops and brackets, long stretches of time where they didn't see each either from lack of want or necessity. It's – well, it's complicated. He can imagine that she'll go up to Andrew and try to force him to reveal more about his motives just as well as he can conceive her continuing to be as closed-off as she is now, working for him, silently disapproving. Who knows, really.

"You think he's your friend?" she asks after a while – she thinks like this, in terms of honor and loyalties, good or bad, like the soldier she is. The truth is she lives – lived – in a world completely different from his: where he learnt to weasel his way out of promises she learned to be blunt and honest; where he was brought to protect his own life above all she believes there is nothing more important than standing up for what you believe, defend your cause at any price. 

"I think so, yeah," he says, agaisnt his better judgment. 

"Then maybe you're the one who should talk to him. It's not friendship, if you don't know who he is. Believe me, you'd better do it now."

"Then I'll –" _just be serving your agenda, won't I?_ but he doesn't say it, for some reason. Maybe he doesn't really mind serving her, go figure. "Do you remember what you told me about honor?"

She raises an eyebrow, already halfway out the door. "I told you a lot of things."

"You told me honor is best won doing what one believes is just."

Her brows furrow. "And you laughed at me."

"Yeah," he shrugs, "but –"

"I don't know what I believe is just," she says, her jaw thrust forward almost defiantly, "that's the problem. Death as the answer to all our problems seems too simple an answer, that's all."

He doesn't answer, and she leaves the room. Funny she should say that, he thinks to forget he's hurt by her words – when she's so much more a soldier than she is, and aren't soldiers supposed to believe that death is, in fact, the solution to everything? Then again, they've lost the last war, and everyone knows sore losers don't get to write history. Maybe the glory of battle belongs only to winners, and soldiers are the ones who detest war the most; it certainly doesn't sound that far-fetched a theory.

*

This house is not made of stone: it's a fleeting construction, constructed by someone who thought that because this is a place where people vacation and near to the water it didn't need to be protected. It's been abandoned long ago, and it's far off the road enough to suit their needs, but the planks are disjointed and loose, letting the wind slip into the creases and brush their skins. They don't mind because it's hot, and the brownstone wasn't all that comfortable either – but it's definitely different. 

The first few days they spent installing the materials they'd managed to get in from New York, computers and wires and the whole of their supervision equipment. Quinn elected residence on the terrace, in a lawn chair; on their first trip to the nearest supermarket she had the team buy her a hat and a pair of sunglasses, which she's rarely let go of since. Now she reads the notebooks days and night, and either she doesn't sleep, or she doesn't have the nightmares she used to; whatever it is, they don't hear from her. Something in there fascinates her but they don't dare ask what. 

They set one of the laptops in the center of the room, propped on a cardboard box, to use as a television and keep informed on the news. From the first day a warrant for their arrest has been circulating: they know Andrew's name – or at least the name he went under in New York, which is probably not his real one – and there's a sketch of him circulating, but Uriah and Thema are only described as his accomplices, a female and a male, human. They're blamed for the disaster at LAX airport, and since it was convenient, the police dumped a few other charges on them, too. There's a recompense, which Uriah tries not to take pride on. Quinn, of course, is a ghost. If she paid attention to anything but her reading – she's barely looked up since she's started, except to ask Andrew for his help with the decryption – she'd probably like it too, Uriah thinks.

They're nowhere near the sea, which is good since Quinn seems to have a panic-like fear of it, or so Andrew tells him, refusing, once more, to disclose the details. He hasn't been happy since they've left New York: even after Los Angeles he seemed more cheerful, convinced that his plans were going to see a favorable outcome, but now that they're so close to the queen's house it seems as though he's deflated, he's somber and moody and refuses to talk. Not that Uriah's tried, per se. It's just – well, it's just a little much, and Thema is right, he does keep a lot of secrets. The thing is, Uriah is usually of the opinion that the best tactics to make problems go away is avoid them until they disappear on their own. Needless to say, it doesn't work all that often.

After his conversation with Thema he doesn't act immediately. There are more days of waiting, and they observe Nomi and her sister. Uriah hadn't seen her a lot, she doesn't appear publicly, usually keeps shut in the Mansion: he's surprised to see how alike they look, as though they'd been modeled from the exact same pattern except that someone had given one of them red hair, and the other white, as though in old European fairy tales. The whole thing looks strangely prophetic, but in the times they live in believing in magic as a side possibility has always seemed to Uriah as the best course of action. He watches them, the careful and joyous way they dance around each other, how it seems like when Nomi is home her sister is always behind her, whispering her advice – her poison, Andrew would probably say. Their affection for one another is troubling.

Thema doesn't raise her concerns with Andrew either. She keeps silent, like Quinn and Uriah: she rises early in the morning and trains in the living-room, long hours spent practicing tae kwon do and ju ji tsu, her legs swinging like she's striving to fly. Uriah only catches her once or twice, he usually sleeps as late as he can get away with, but it really is a thing of beauty. Maybe he should do that, now that he's supposed to fight – well, probably, at some point. Now that he thinks about it he's almost surprised Andrew allowed him to stay. He's not good for much; though of course it means that Andrew doesn't have to wonder about the secret of his operation getting out, which is probably something in itself.

All in all their lives are a silent state of waiting, and it puts Uriah on edge, makes him want to ignite fires and start conversations he shouldn't. The thing is, he's never done well with idleness, and there's the need crawling under his skin to urge the other to _do_ something, especially when they seem to be waiting for an opportunity that isn't even clearly defined. Let's be honest, he feels like bursting, we could be here forever. But even Thema, who's usually the impatient one, doesn't say it, and their dinners are long silences broken only by mastication sounds. 

It takes over a week before Uriah finally works up the nerve to talk to Andrew. He hasn't forgotten how dangerous he can be, especially when he's in a foul mood like that, and well – it never seems like a good idea to pick a fight with someone who can kill you in twenty different ways without a weapon, does it? Then again, it's not like Uriah is known for his carefulness. 

Andrew's writing. He usually does that in the kitchen area, because he likes to be alone but also keep an eye on everyone, like the good tight-ass anal-retentive bastard he is; his writing is a tight scrawl, nervous and focused and black. Uriah clears his throat. Andrew doesn't look up. 

"Is that where you write the names of your victims, then?"

Andrew rolls his eyes, looking strangely scornful. "Marks, yeah," he corrects snappily. That man, Uriah decides, needs a massage.

"You need a massage," he says.

Andrew lets out a startled laugh. "And who's going to give it? You? I don't know if you've noticed, but we're not exactly at Club Med here."

"We might as well be, for all that we do." He sighs. "Seriously, Andrew, we've been sitting on our asses for weeks now. Last time we talked this was urgent and the earth needed to be rid of Nomi Brulée. What's changed?"

"You know her last name?"

Uriah shrugs. "Sure. You think I didn't do my research when I agreed to help you with this? Come on, I'm not that much of an idiot."

Andrew does have the courtesy to look the slightest bit chastised. "Of course you're not, I just –"

"It doesn't matter. What are we doing? Why are we not – I don't know, dropping bombs on that castle right now?"

Andrew huffs out a frustrated sigh. "You know it's not as easy as that."

"But why? It's just –" He rakes a hand through his hair, inhales deeply. "You don't tell us anything. You're my friend," Andrew looks up brusquely, looking unsure whether to laugh or just flat out deny it, "you _are_ , and we're all in this now. Why do you hate her so much? What did she even do to you?"

Andrew tosses his journal aside and stands up, crossing his arms over his chest. "It's complicated."

"I got a two thousand on my SATs."

Andrew cracks a small smile. "I thought you didn't finish college."

Uriah waves a dismissive hand. "I didn't, I just – wait, how do you know?"

Andrew shrugs. 

"Of course." He shakes his head. "Look, just... tell me, okay? I won't run away from this, I'm _in_ this now. I support you and your – cause, I just want to know."

"She hurt my family," Andrew says with a sigh. "I know that seems – I know that doesn't seem like a lot, that happened to a lot of people, but she had my grandparents killed, and my mother died from spending her life trying to escape from her. My whole childhood, that's what it was, just running away. I don't want to have to have to do that anymore, that's all. And I really do think she deserves to die for what she's done. I love this country, and seeing it... _invaded_ by this scum, it makes me want to retch."

He falls silent. Uriah stills, rocking on his heels. "That's all?" he asks, a bit warily. It's probably a bit insensitive, but it seems like great length to go to to keep something that's not even really a secret. "I mean, there isn't anything else to this?"

"No. I just don't like to talk about my family, that's all."

They stand face to face, and Uriah can't help but laugh, because he did think there was something a little more dramatic behind this whole mysterious stranger routine. Andrew looks at him, bewildered for a moment, then joins in, a little tentatively.

"I'm sorry," Uriah gasps, "it's just – yeah, okay."

To tell the truth, he still isn't convinced Andrew told him the whole story, even though he would like to believe it. He'll take it for now.

"Well. Thanks for telling me."

Andrew nods. "Sure."

Uriah is about to leave the room before he asks more questions – he only has the guts for one major argument this week, and he's already exhausted his quota – when Andrew starts speaking again. "You know," he says, his voice low, "my mother..." He sighs. "She asked me to do this. Before she died, she said she hadn't been able to do it herself. She told me Quinn's – what Quinn had gone through – and she said someone had to take the matter in their own hands, and if no one was willing to then maybe we should. I don't think she wanted _this_ ," he opens his arms a little, as though he thinks maybe the killing has left a trace on him, a red scar on his chest that's invisible only to him, "but you know. Any means necessary."

Uriah sits back down, driven by a morbid sort of curiosity. "Do you really feel no pity for them?"

Andrew's face hardens. "No." There's a beat of silence, and then, "I used to, at first, but you've got to remember they're not _people_. They can't feel. What they said, every single word, is a lie. I know they look human, they feel human, and yeah, it's good science but it's a lie. They're just a bunch of wires, weapons that misfired. I just wish people could realize that."

Uriah opens his mouth but closes it almost immediately. There's nothing to say to this. Andrew's hatred of the Mechanics is powerful and driving, and nothing Uriah can say will change that – besides, wouldn't it be a little hypocritical to try and change his mind while still helping him to kill Nomi? Sometimes... sometimes you've got to watch people like him go, destroy what they've got to destroy to un-break themselves. And it's not like Uriah could do anything about it, anyway.

"It just seems strange that you hate her so much, that's all."

Andrew leans forward, more invested than Uriah's ever seen him. Hate is a powerful motivator. "You don't understand. She's a _monster_ , Uriah. Once we cut her strings, the rest of them will just..." he opens a hand, fingers pointing like a star, "scatter. We'll just have to pick them up, decommission them. They're robots. We're just putting them back where they belong, that's all."

Uriah takes a step back. Truth is, Andrew's words are putting a sour taste in his mouth. He knows – he _knows_ – what Andrew's told him isn't the whole truth, because this kind of pure, distilled fanatical hatred always means tragedy, but he still can't abide by Andrew's words. Their lives are all hard. Hating people – hating an entire race like that, it just never ends well. Uriah could supply countless examples, but he shuts his mouth, doesn't say. This kind of things only ever happen slowly, at any rate. 

"Maybe you're right," he says instead of what he really feels, and the look that flickers in Andrew's eyes, desperate and for a second, almost reassured, makes him feel slightly better. 

"Hi."

Uriah starts, turns around. Faced with Quinn's slow Cheshire cat grin he promises himself once more than he won't let her surprise her like that again. In vain, apparently. It's slightly disturbing, the way she's at least eight years older than him but still so frail, as though her years in Captiva had been spent in complete reclusion – even though he knew they weren't; "The meds did this," she said flippantly when she caught him looking at her ribs peeking through the flimsy material of her dress.

"How long have you been here?" Andrew asks. He wants to cling as tightly as he can to his secrets, Uriah understands, even when they're only half-secrets, veiled truths. Quinn... it's hard to tell what will make her tick. She's unpredictable: one wrong word will have her shaking and tight-jawed, and something else, that would make anyone else shake, leaves her completely undisturbed. The news that Andrew used to kill people – _they're not people_ – for a living doesn't seem to have any effect on her whatsoever, which probably makes for one more reason for Thema to distrust her. 

"Enough," she says. "Why don't you call Thema? I found something."

"You found something? How did you find something? Where?"

Quinn only smiles. "Call her."

They do; pressing Quinn for more information is useless. She seems to suffer from a form of OCD that applies to people rather than things; seems to feel the need to arrange them around her in specific patterns, her audience when she needs to talk and when she doesn't, the theater that plays out for her. 

She folds herself in a chair – directly in front of her Andrew's laptop displays in tight squares everything that's going on in the Mansion, now a direct connection from what's going on on the bigger monitors in the living-room, now unguarded. Andrew has sit down, back to his usual half-disdainful apathy (though he's been making efforts, these days, to be a little more friendly, proportional to Thema's growing distrust of him); Thema's pressed close to Uriah, the both of them sitting in the only corner of the kitchen the sun touches, splaying its buttery halo on the floor, cut only by their shadows. 

"I found something," Quinn repeats, probably to manage the suspense. 

Andrew has a movement of impatience. "Where?"

"In the notebooks."

"We checked the notebooks. We read them over and over, and we didn't find anything useful."

Quinn tilts her head. "I know you didn't. But I did."

Andrew's mouth purses tightly, and Uriah holds back a chuckle. Saying some like that is pretty much a guarantee that Andrew will listen, be it only to deny it.

Eventually Quinn deems them worthy of her discovery, after letting them marinate for a handful of minutes. "Asta's sick," she declared.

"What?" Uriah and Thema ask at the same time as Andrew snaps, "That doesn't make any sense, you're wasting my time.

"She is," Quinn says calmly. She takes one of the notebooks out of her pocket, leafs through it. "There. _Fifteen of September," she reads a in clear monotone. "One of the major problems in this new line of prototypes is a defect of the growth gland. It seems like the prototypes aren't as strong as the others and only enjoy the normal human lifespan. Though we have decided to put down most of the line, keeping one specimen to use as a template for the new generation. J. says the funding is in danger, must try and eliminate the flaws in the program._ " She wets her finger with her tongue and leafs through the notebook again. "And here: _re: symptoms of the ailment of the A Line. Involves stunned growth, reduced physical strength, tendency to introversion. Template specimen occasionally shows signs of vertigo. As a preventive measure, reduced contact to the outside environment is preferred._ It fits. When I," she squeezes her eyes closed, "she never goes outside, except for really important occasions, and even then it's only for a few hours. And she does have vertigo, you've seen it too."

Andrew agrees reluctantly, even though Uriah hadn't. Oops.

"That doesn't mean anything," Andrew says brusquely, even though he's clearly interested. He snatches the notebook from Quinn's hands, looking away quickly when she crosses his eyes, probably so she doesn't actually ask the question ( _who_ was _your father anyway? Just how involved..._ ). Uriah feels like he'd rather not know, and maybe it's cowardly, but he's learned over the years that self-preservation always comes first. 

Quinn pouts. "Do you really need me to do everything for you? You've seen how much Nomi dotes on Asta, and contrary to Nomi, she's there all the time. Now, you know Nomi takes most of her security with her when she leaves, at least half the Militia and her own detail. Security is bound to be relaxed when it's only Asta in the Mansion. So –"

"- all the have to do is wait until she leaves and do what? Kidnap Asta? What purpose would that serve?" Andrew asks, but he seems reluctantly interested. 

"You know what," Thema chimes in, her arms crossed over her chest. "It's a gamble, but if we get Asta we wouldn't have much difficulty detaining her and we can use her to lure Nomi in."

"It won't work," Andrew shakes his head. "All it will do is get all the secret agencies plus the Militia on our trail, that's all. You know how Nomi operates. Don't negotiate with terrorists and all that shit."

"No," Quinn says. "Not with Asta. Not if you threaten to hurt her."

Uriah hums. "And she knows you can, since she knows you're behind the Mechanic Murders. You're the only one of us she _knows_ , Andrew. She won't take the risk that you might not be bluffing."

Andrew keeps silent. They might be holding their breaths; but it's a way to break this wait, to do something finally, even if it's doomed to fail. On the screen behind them Asta goes on to her daily occupations, unaware that she's been chosen at their new victim. On one hand it's true, she _will_ be easier to capture: she's slower, calmer and less spontaneous. They've written down her schedule days ago, a steady stream of study, political manipulation and quiet reading. Almost every night Nomi joins her in her room and they don't look, because intimacy like this isn't something you except from machines, especially machines as unrepentantly cruel and murderous as the two of them. 

"Okay," he says eventually. "Maybe you're right. Maybe we should give it a try."

The cheer is silent, but it pervades the room nonetheless; they sit motionlessly for a beat before scattering, a new frenzy possessing their bones, plans to design, ruses to invent, footage to peruse. Quinn holds the notebooks close and says she'll continue working on them; Uriah offers to review the footage to see what they've missed; Thema says she'll inspect their collection of weapons and see what kind of strategy they can devise from that. Only Andrew remains in the kitchen, of course, looking a little stunned. He probably isn't all that happy, he must feel like they're straying from his goal. What he wants, of course, so ardently and fiercely, is for Nomi to die.

*

It's after three when they hear the knocking. It's light, like a child's fist against the door; but no one knows they're here, the house looks, for all intents and purposes, abandoned and honestly decaying. And even if someone wanted to visit, or had found it in during a stroll, as unlikely as that is, it's three in the morning.

Uriah finds both Andrew and Thema in the stairs in their underwear, their guns cocked. 

Andrew nods in his direction. "Quinn?" he whispers. 

"She's fine." 'Fine' might be a euphemism: what she is is sitting on her mattress, her eyes wide and her back unnaturally straight, almost bent backwards. Maybe they've woken her in the middle of a dream, a nightmare; maybe that's just what the night does to her. Still, the image sticks into Uriah's mind, the way she wrung her hands, like she didn't even notice what she was doing.

Andrew waves his gun at him. "You go open. We'll cover you."

Uriah makes a face. "Why me? I'm always the one who does that kind of stuff."

Andrew glares at him, and Thema rolls her eyes behind him. Uriah sighs. "Okay, whatever."

His heart does speed up as he pads quietly to the door, because it could really be anyone, a commando of armed men with a deceptively weak fist or a lost kitten or a(nother) serial killer or, well, anything. He takes a breath. "Okay," he repeats to himself. 

But when he opens the door, what's waiting for him is – a boy. He must be about twelve, with glossy black hair that brushes his shoulders and big, determined brown eyes. He's dressed cleanly, with a backpack. He's not smiling. There's something about him, a certain formality of presentation that makes Uriah ill-at-ease but also something strangely familiar, like – 

But wait. The boy's not looking at him, Uriah notices suddenly. He's looking _behind_ him, at... Uriah turns around. At Thema, how has blanched, and is watching back with as much intensity and a surprising terror. 

The boy opens his mouth. When he speaks his voice is toneless and holds no intonation if for a faint, almost unnoticeable underlying anger. 

"Hello, mother," he says, his eyes still unblinking, fixed on Thema.


	10. Chapter 10

**8.**

"Hello, mother."

Uriah peruses the kid's features. He looks nothing like Thema, doesn't have the color of her skin, the quiet strength of her body, the stubborn leanness of her features. In fact, he looks like what Uriah would have imagine would be the result of someone entirely other, the opposite of her. He tries to imagine the missing component, this unspoken father there must have been, and how queer he must be to produce so off-putting an offspring, but comes up empty. He's not moving. If anything, this would separate him from his mother, who can't seem to go a minute without moving, doing something, putting her body to a definite purpose.

When it becomes clear that no one's going to say anything, Uriah clears his throat. "Hi."

The kid's gaze tears from Thema and swivels sharply to him. "Who are you?" he asks.

"Hello to you, too," Uriah says, mildly offended. "What's your name?"

"It doesn't concern you."

"You'll find it does," says Uriah, but Thema finally seems to shake off her shock and walks down the stairs, taking the kid by the arm. "We'll be back in a minute," she says, her voice shakier than Uriah's ever heard. He wants to offer his support, but comes up blank. 

They disappear in the living-room. The light is switched-on, and a wide swathe of glowing orange drifts to the staircase, creating a cluster of unfolding fantastical shadows. Uriah briefly considers spying on what they're saying, but he's not actually that much of an asshole.

"Well," he says.

Quinn gives a high-pitched chuckle and Andrew groans, low, before turning back up the stairs. 

"What are you doing?"

Andrew throws him his usual _you're an idiot_ look. "Going to sleep, what does it look like?"

"Don't you want to see how this," he jerks his thumb in the direction of the living-room, "unfolds?"

"Not really, no. Tell me if something happens. Don't wake me up unless it's really important."

Quinn follows him, and Uriah's left at the bottom of the staircase, his mind whirring with questions. So Thema had a kid. It shouldn't be this surprising, but it is. It's just that she was never the maternal type, and in all the time he's known her, she never mentioned it. Then again, she seemed pretty surprised too, so Uriah's going to assume they're not close. This is just – it's just so _strange_ , is all.

He can't go back to sleep like this, so he makes himself a cup of coffee, to wake himself up. He'll need it, for the explanations that will no doubt follow. Maybe this will make sense when Thema does explain, who knows. For now... they're talking in the living-room, not quite shouting but from what Uriah can hear it's loud and not exactly friendly. By the time Uriah finishes his coffee they've quieted down some, and eventually Thema appears in the frame where the kitchen used to be, but was torn down at some point before they got here; she gives him a smile, tired. 

"You should go back to sleep."

"Can't." He points to his mug. "Got caffeine in my bloodstream now. Is everything okay?"

She drags her hand over her face with a sigh. "Yeah. I'll be fine."

She doesn't offer more, so Uriah doesn't ask, despite the burning urge to. He can be a gentleman when he needs to. "Can I do anything?"

"You should really go back to sleep. You'll be exhausted tomorrow otherwise."

"Is he..."

"He's staying here, yeah. I set him up on the living-room couch."

She doesn't ask if that's okay, but there's something defiant in the way she says it, like she expects Uriah to tell her she can't. It's not like he's going to boot up a teenage boy in the night, though. He's not actually a monster.

"Okay." He sets down his mug. "Only if you come with me."

She doesn't quite blush, but surprise registers on her face. "Uriah..."

He, however, _does_ blush. God, he's the worst Lothario ever. He didn't even mean it like that. "Go to sleep too, that's what I meant. We can cuddle, though, if you want. Hands above the covers."

She gives a thin smile. "Sure."

Her arms are wrapped around herself, her head down. He wants to reach out, wishes he could do something, offer a reassurance that wasn't also a shot in the dark or a question – but in the end all he does is wrap his arm around her and lead her upstairs. She doesn't need help, but sometimes it doesn't hurt – right? 

She takes him up on his offer. They don't talk about it when she curls her frame on his mattress, and he slots against her, their fingers lacing under the covers. When she thinks he's asleep she sobs quietly, her back shaken by small tremors against him. He doesn't say anything. 

*

Despite what Uriah was hoping, the kid isn't gone when he wakes up the morning after. In fact, he's still very much there, sitting at the kitchen table eating slightly burnt toast and sipping tea Uriah didn't even know they _had_ (probably one of Quinn's herbal monstrosities), looking for all the world like he's the one waiting for an explanation. Frankly, Uriah doesn't want to be insulting to Thema, but he looks like a little brat. 

Quinn (who had looked at them with a sideways smile when she'd seen them both emerge from Uriah's room, but hadn't actually said anything, thank God) moves around him like he's not there, going about her daily ablutions. Andrew, faithful to his self-assigned role of Leader of the Group, eventually sighs. "Okay, Thema, I've got to ask." He points to the kid. "Who is this? What is he doing here? More importantly, how did he find us?"

"He's – my son." She sneaks a glance at Uriah, who tries to keep his face as straight as possible. "I had him when I was nineteen, I, huh – quit college to – but it doesn't matter."

The kid throws her a furious glance. "It doesn't matter?" he asks, his mouth tight. "No, you're right." He pushes his plate away from him; some tea sloshes over the brim of his mug and onto the table. "I'll go. I'll leave with your..." his eyes flash, "friends."

Uriah grabs his arm before he can actually leave the room, because come on, he probably didn't come find Thema in a secret location just to tell her how disappointed with her parenting style he is. "You're not going anywhere, kid," he says. The kid struggles violently in his grasp. 

"I don't know how he found us," Thema continues, her eyes slightly wild, fixed on her progeny. She looks like she can't believe her eyes. Uriah feels for her, he really does – if he found out that his kid had such a crappy attitude, he'd wish it'd stayed abandoned too. No, that's just mean.

Eventually, as always seems to be the resolution of everything around here, Andrew takes the matter in hand. He takes the kid from Uriah's loose grasp and sits him at the table again. The kid doesn't sound much more impressed with him than he did Uriah, but at least he doesn't try to flee again, so Uriah's going to count that as a success. 

"What's your name?"

"Lois," Thema says before he can. The kid looks at her; for the first time he'd shown up at the door the night before, he actually looks like a kid, achingly vulnerable. Thema looks away first, and the stubborn disdain slips back on his face it's hard to imagine there could have ever been anything else there.

"Lois," Andrew says as though he's completely missed the exchange which, knowing him, he probably hasn't, "what are you doing here?"

"I came to see her."

"How did you find us?"

"My father helped me. What are you doing here, anyway?" He wrinkles his nose. "It's disgusting."

Thema sits down facing him. "How is -" she squeezes her eyes shut, "how is your father?"

The kid – Lois – sneers. "Tired. Until yesterday I thought he was my uncle. That's what he told me, you know why? Because he couldn't raise me, because of you, because you left –"

Andrew turns to Thema, apparently cottoning up to the fact that the kid is probably not going to cooperate. "Why couldn't he raise him? What happened? You have to tell us what happened."

"She doesn't," Uriah intervenes. Andrew glares at him, and that probably would be the start of some sort of argument, if Thema didn't sigh, say, "No, it's okay. I can explain."

She sits close to her kid – _her_ kid, and Uriah still can't wrap his mind around that, doesn't think he ever will, honestly – and he moves slightly to accommodate her. He probably doesn't notice what he's doing, and it does something to Uriah, a strange flutter in his spine that he doesn't really want to investigate. 

Thema links her hands on the table. "When I was nineteen, I met this – this guy. Well, you've all heard the story, right? I was still in school, he was older. We fell in love, I became pregnant, and we decided to keep it. He was... he's not – we decided that I would move to the countryside to have it, he had a holiday residence there, and I could continue my studies. He left everything for me, his job, the city... and I had Lois, we were happy for a while. Then I left. That's all."

"How can that be all?" the kid jumps angrily. "Why did you leave? Didn't you love dad? Didn't you love me?"

Thema startles; when she looks at him it's like she really doesn't know the answer to that question, is overwhelming by his presence and his mere existence, the fact that he's there in that kitchen. She takes her head in her hands. 

She turns to Andrew. "His father was a Mechanic," she says firmly, pushing her chair backwards. Lois knits his hands together, as though he was trying not to reach out for her. "I think that's what you wanted to know."

She leaves the room before Andrew can ask more. Uriah follows her and, leaning against the decrepit fridge, Quinn offers a keening little laugh. 

"Mother!" Lois yells; it reverberates in the entire house, but Thema doesn't come back.

*

The situation – the situation isn't good. If Uriah thought that Andrew wouldn't freak out over the fact that Thema had a kid with a Mechanic, he was sorely mistaken, and on their side Lois and Thema alternate between looking at each other like they very much want to run away as far as possible from each other and like they want to kill each other. On occasion the kid curls up on the couch and looks vacantly at the window, and he looks so small and so broken that even Uriah, who has decided from the first second that he does not like him one bit, desperately wants to give him a hug. (Which he won't do, mind you, because he also has the particularity of biting the head off anyone who goes near him.)

The kid is... he's a mixture of irritating and heartbreaking. The more he looks at him, the more Uriah sees thing about him that remind him of Thema, not physical attributes but attitudes, the way he chews on his bottom lip or the way his head tips forward when he knows he's wrong but won't admit it. It's still hard to imagine that he's actually Thema's son, and with a Mechanic to boot, but maybe given a few more hundred years Uriah could actually get used to it. Not that this is about him, though. This is about her, and this kid, and possibly the father who isn't here but might turn up, who knows. Since apparently their hide-out isn't all that secret. 

That part is obviously the one that bothers Andrew the most. Both Thema and Andrew try to steer clear of him, but what with them living in the same house and having to take turns surveying the monitors, she can't exactly avoid him forever. Uriah catches shouting in the afternoon as he comes back down to the living-room. 

"How could you not tell me! You're jeopardizing everything, Thema. How can I ever know... if you're out there _sleeping_ with every Mechanic that crosses your way, how can I trust you? How can I trust that you're really in this, that you want to help me?"

"You _hired_ me, Andrew. You never asked that I agree with your ideas, which I don't. I do want to kill Nomi, because she's a _tyrant_ , not just because she happens to be a Mechanic."

"This species is poisonous, Thema. He can't stay here. I don't know if you realize what you've done –"

"What I've done? I've done nothing! I'm just as surprised as you, Andrew, and you're being a dick. This is my kid, I can't just boot him out."

"That didn't seem to stop you ten years ago, did it?" the kid intervenes snidely from the couch where he's still curled up, but Uriah is pretty sure Andrew would have said it if he hadn't. 

There's a silence, and Uriah slips guiltily into the room. Thema and Andrew are standing in front of the computers, fuming, their muscles coiled. Thema is so tense Uriah feels like she would break if he pinched her and this is painful, the kind of ugly Uriah wishes didn't have to exist. Maybe this was a mistake, after all. This whole quest. He thought he could just stand by and take advantage of Andrew's rage to help the rid the world of a monster, but maybe that was just cowardice. Still, he can't help but think that if it wasn't him and Thema and Quinn – wouldn't it be someone else? Isn't it better, in a twisted sort of way? 

"Let's take a break," he says, making the mistake of grabbing Andrew's arm to lead him away. Andrew shakes him off violently. 

"You agree with me, right?" he asks Uriah, his eyebrows furrowed. 

Thema's gaze focuses on him, unreadable, and Uriah realizes with an internal jolt that she doesn't know what he's going to say. 

"I don't think all Mechanics are evil, if that's what you mean. But we should definitely find out how exactly the kid found us."

He can tell, before he even finishes his sentence, that Andrew only heard the first half. His eyes widen, and if Uriah wasn't sure that they were friends there's no such doubt now, because that bitter fold of the mouth is so typical of betrayal that Uriah almost winces and looks away. 

"Look, I -" he starts, to try and salvage the pieces, but Andrew waves his apology away, "No, save it. It's fine." He turns back to Thema. "You have one day. If he's still there after that, I can't guarantee anything." And they all know what _that_ means, don't they?

"You made nice friends, didn't you, _mum_?" the kid snarks as soon as Andrew's stormed out the door. Uriah can't help but wonder if he was this mean when he was twelve. 

Thema drops on the plastic chair that they put in front of the computers, ignoring her son. "Thank you," she breathes out. She's always been the most combative person Uriah knows, but she sounds completely drained. It figures that it would be something like this that got her down, though, when she doesn't even flinch when she has to fight three over-armed Mechanics. 

He squeezes her shoulder. She flinches before relaxing into the touch. "You'll be fine. It'll be fine. He'll come around."

Thema laughs, bitter. "You know he won't. And what am I –" a choked-off sob, "what am I supposed to do with Lois? I _abandoned him_ , Uriah. What am I supposed to do now?"

Uriah crouches in front of Thema. Her joined hands, white at the knuckles, are damp with the tears that fall silently from her eyes. "I don't know," he says, because, well, he doesn't, "maybe you can try to make it up to him. He's – he came here for a reason, Thema. I know he's not making it is easy," Thema looks up, already biting off a retort, _he has a right to_ , and Uriah can't help but smile, "I know he's not making it easy but he's here for a reason. Just give him time."

"I don't have time. You heard Andrew."

"Andrew's a dick. I'll talk to him."

Thema gives him a look, _I don't know what good that'll do_ , but she doesn't actually say it.

Uriah tilts his head. "Who knows," he says with a small smile. "Maybe it'll get through to him."

"Maybe."

"You –" He doesn't know where he's going with this, is the truth. He has a lot of things he wants to say, about where they were going before Lois showed up, about what that story is, exactly, what kind of love it was and why Thema left, about he might love her and no, he doesn't know how it happened either; but he doesn't say them, because it's not the time and place and also because he's afraid, so sue him. "It's gonna be okay," he settles for, and he squeezes her hands again. 

On his way out the room he spots Quinn sitting cross-legged on the couch next to Lois. They're talking animatedly, his fingers splayed over the pages of one of the notebooks, and Quinn's leaning over his shoulder, probably explaining how to decode them. For the first time since Andrew's met him he looks his age, and his face is alit with childish excitement. A strange pang of sweetness hits Uriah in the stomach. 

He must make some kind of noise, maybe a sigh, because Quinn looks up and their eyes catch. She smiles.

He feels lighter when he leaves; maybe he was wrong. Maybe this does mean something, even though it has its bump and flaws. Maybe there is a sense to this unity.

*

It takes three knocks and some emotional abuse (and wow, who knew that actually worked on him, they're going from surprise to surprise – but then again it's not like any threat of physical harm was going to be believable) to get Andrew to open the door of his room.

"You're a dick," Uriah says as soon as Andrew appears in the frame, his eyes dark and unrepentant. 

"Do you seriously want me to slam the door in your face? I will." It's true. It's exactly the kind of thing he would do.

Which is why Uriah jams his foot in the door before repeating, "You're a dick. Why would you talk to her like that?"

"She _betrayed_ us, Uriah. Which, by the way, is your fault, for involving her into this in the first place. I should never have believed you when you told me she could be trusted. This is why I always do what I have to do myself, by the way."

"Are you even listening to yourself? She didn't betray us. How is sleeping with a Mechanic ten years ago betraying us? It has nothing to do with us, Andrew. I can't –"

"It's sleeping with the enemy. If she did it then, who says she's not going to -"

"Do what? Do what? Go buy groceries and then suddenly fall into the arms of the Mechanic cashier? Are you even aware of how ridiculous you sound?"

Andrew snarls. For some reason, Uriah notices that he's never seemed so young. "This isn't _your_ mission. This isn't everything you've lived for since you were five. I know this doesn't matter to you, but it does to me, it's all that matters. So don't fucking tell me what I should or shouldn't think."

"It _is_ my mission! It's been my mission since I said I would come with you even without you pointing a gun in my face, you asshole. Do you honestly think I'm not invested in this? Maybe I don't have your – I don't know on what you work, rage or love or fucking mystery, I don't know why you're so intent on hating all of them, but I'm in this. You know I am."

Something softens on Andrew's face. "Sorry. I'm sorry, I do know that." 

"I -" Uriah squeezes his eyes shut briefly; sighs. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I can't... I can't let her go now, Uriah, not now that she knows everything about this operation, and the kid – he knew where to find us. I can't let them go. But I can't continue working with her either. We're so close... and she could ruin everything. This – this is something you have to believe in."

"Do you seriously think she doesn't want Nomi dead?"

"Not like me."

"No one wants her dead like you."

Something suspiciously akin to pride shines in Andrew's eyes for a second, but Uriah decides to ignore it. "I have to –"

"Don't say _kill them_. You can't kill them. There is no way – I swear, don't even think it. This is insane, do you even realize how insane it is?"

"You said that about killing Nomi, and look where you are now."

"Those are _human beings_ , Andrew. I know you and me aren't exactly heroes, but you've got to know enough about right and wrong to realize how twisted it is to kill a _twelve-year-old_ because he knows where your temporary hideout is."

Andrew's mouth thins out. "Do you have a better idea?"

"Anything would be a better idea. Fuck, Andrew. This – Thema is –"

"I know you're in love with her, but it doesn't change anything about who she is. How can you still love her now that you know..."

"That I know what? That she's slept with other people than me? Trust me, I knew that already."

"But not with that – swine, it's –"

Uriah makes a fist instead of saying what he actually means, which would probably translate as a string of insults. Fighting wouldn't help anything, besides which Uriah would probably not come out of it alive. He doesn't exactly fancy the saw, Thema or not. 

"Let's agree to disagree," he says eventually. "Besides, the kid can help us." Okay, so it's a bit of a shot in the dark, but that's how Uriah's always worked. It usually turns out great – well, except that time where it got Thema pointing a gun at his junk, but that ended well, too. Just a misunderstanding.

"Yeah? How?"

Uriah's brain is working so fast he's pretty sure it's whirring, and Andrew has never looked so skeptical, which is a feat. 

"He can – he can get us into the Mansion." Of course he can. Oh god, he's a genius. "Look, obviously he's the progeny of a Mechanic and a human," he continues, warming up to his theme, "and that's never been head of before, right? But he has the mark, I saw it, which means he must have an ID number. Thema didn't say who his father was, but chances are he has a post in either the government or the administration, and you know how tight-knit they are, there has to be a way to finagle something so the kid can get in."

Andrew looks at him like he's lost his mind. Okay, not the reaction Uriah was hoping for, but they can work up to it. "No."

"Why? It's a great plan."

"Oh, you're right; we'll just send the monster in there and wait until it tells Nomi exactly what we've been up to in our spare time. What do you want to do, lock yourself into your cell too?"

" _It_? Andrew, you're – okay, whatever. Just... just think, okay. And don't call Lois it in front of Thema, be it only so Nomi doesn't notice us purely by the screaming. She'll blow your head off, I swear to god."

"I'd like to see her try."

Uriah thinks about saying it: _Andrew, she's your friend, how can you say something like this, how_ – but it's like talking to a wall. Better try to do something he can actually achieve before trying to tackle impossible causes. 

"Lois won't betray us." Andrew opens his mouth to disagree, but Uriah talks before him. "If you don't trust him, you can go with him. Besides, he won't do anything to hurt Thema."

"You don't know that," Andrew says with a sneer, but he sounds a little more convinced already. Uriah is torn between agreeing, because that's true, he doesn't know it, and there really is no limit to how thoughtlessly cruel kids can be sometimes, not to mention that Thema did abandon him; and asking Andrew if he watched the same tapes, the one where Nomi, the cruel and fearful and tyrannic Nomi, joins her sister in bed every night and holds her like she thinks Asta is her very own haven. He keeps silent.

"Think about it," he stars again after a while, when the idea has had the time to sink into Andrew's brain. "We don't have to wait for an opportunity. We can get our info firsthand, strike from the inside. I mean, don't tell me you've never dreamed of beating Nomi at her own game."

"Don't try to manipulate me, Uriah."

Uriah holds his hands up; his arguments are having an effect, he can see it. Andrew sits back down, his face confused. Uriah would feel bad for him if some of the things he said didn't actually made him want to retch.

"I'm not; I just think it's worth considering. Not to mention it will be a lot less blood to clean up, don't you think?"

Andrew doesn't answer. He lets himself fall back down on the bed. With his arms open he looks more beautiful than he is, and his age, for once. Uriah tends to forget that they're actually the same age. Andrew closes his eyes. The skin of his eyelids is nerved with blue, like he hasn't slept for days, and Uriah feels a pang of pity for him. Who know what goes on in his head. 

"You know," he says softly, like he's hoping Uriah won't be able to hear him, "I wouldn't have done it. Killed them. I would have found another way."

Uriah nods. It's better than saying, _I hope you would have, but I'm not sure._

"You should come downstairs. We can talk about it with them." Which will probably bring its own load of problems: Thema probably won't be happy with sending her child into danger, and Uriah can't say he's delighted about it himself, but if it's that or violent death with a saw to the forehead, well, there really isn't much choice, is there?

Andrew doesn't move. "I will."

Uriah nods to himself again; he closes the door softly, and it's only when he's halfway down the stairs that he realizes how hard his heart pounding. 

*

Thema looks better when he comes to collect everyone in the living-room. She's still sitting by the computers, and looking fairly exhausted, but it's not like less can be expected after spending a day like she has. Lois is on the couch, utterly engrossed by the notebooks.

"Brainy kid, huh," Uriah says when as he reaches Thema. "Figures." She looks up at him and gives him a weak smile.

"Yeah, he's been doing that since Quinn gave him the codes."

There's a beat of silence, not entirely uncomfortable. Thema doesn't ask him how it went with Andrew, and Uriah is grateful for it – at least he doesn't have to say, _you were right_. He'd bet she'd have preferred not to be.

"Did you talk to him?"

She shakes her head. "What am I supposed to say? Sorry I ran away because I didn't feel like wasting my life taking care of you? Yeah, that sounds great, I'm sure he'll forgive me after that."

Uriah grimaces. "Is that what happened?" he can't help but asking. "Was there – I mean, did you not like his father, or –?"

"Jemeriah wasn't the problem," she says wearily. "It was all me, I was a kid, I wanted adventure... Jemeriah was – is – the kindest man I ever knew."

"How did you meet him?"

She laughs. "I'm not sure I even remember right. I was so long ago, but... I don't know, I think he gave a lecture at NYU. I asked him to go out with me, and he wouldn't, and then... God, I don't even know why I asked. I could've gotten in serious trouble for it, but he didn't look like a Mechanic, and by the time I noticed he was too later, you know? He wore his hair shorter than most of them, I figured he was just an eccentric. Not much Mechanic teachers."

"Did you love him?"

"Of course I did. But it's not – I mean, I had ambitions, I wanted to finish my degrees, be a scientist, be a rockstar, I don't know, be everything you want to be when you're that age. I thought I could do that and have a kid, but I was just kidding myself." She shakes her head, dropping it in the cupped palms of her hands. "God, this is so messed-up." She sneaks a glance at Lois. "I can't believe..."

"I know."

"I mean, look at him. Would you ever believe..."

"I didn't, at first," Uriah says, more honest than he'd meant to be. "But he has some, uh, expressions you have."

Thema laughs, nervous and a little shrill, bordering on hysterical. "He does, doesn't he? Oh God."

She tips into him, another person who looks younger today; in the changing light coming from the slanted window he can almost imagine that's she's nineteen again, fresh off high school with all those big dreams Uriah remember having when he left home. Where she is now isn't all bad, all things considered: she's one of the best in the business, but he knows her, how ruthless and competent she is, how difficult it is for her to give her trust, and he can't help but wonder what happened to her in between to make her that tough. 

"You should be proud," he says instead. "The kid might be a brat, he's obviously smart." And he means it: it looks like Lois has gone through half the first notebook, which Uriah took two days to do, and he's devouring it with an enthusiasm Uriah wouldn't have believed him capable of. 

"It's got nothing to do with me. You know what they say: blood doesn't make family. I gave him up. How do you forgive someone for that?"

"You don't. But you can start over... he's here, isn't he?"

"I don't know."

It's fortunate that Andrew chooses this moment to declare a team meeting (which sounds way more organized than they actually are, and is also something they've never done before), because Uriah has no idea how he would've responded to that. He's a generally positive person, but even he has no clue what to do when your long-lost kid shows up on your doorstep and then refuses to talk to you. Hopefully that'll never happen to him. 

They all shuffle to the kitchen, which is apparently now the chosen spot for all crucial conversations, and sit silently around the table. Lois is still gripping the notebook (well, another one, he's at his second now), his white knuckles the only thing betraying his nervousness. For once, maybe sensing the importance of the discussion, Quinn actually sits on a chair. 

"So," Andrew says, and Uriah notices he's not looking at Uriah or Thema. This is not going to go well, he can just feel it. 

"Maybe I should take this over," he says, in a rare moment of selflessness. He regrets it as soon as everyone's eyes shift to him. 

But Andrew doesn't shoot him down, reclines in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. "You're right. Go on."

"Um..." Thema's eyes on him are hard and hopeful, their green unforgiving. Well, there's only one way to go about this. "Andrew and I think we could use Lois to get into the Mansion."

A chorus of nos echo from around the table. Yeah, this is pretty much what he was expecting. "Hear me out, hear me out, okay? We don't have much time. Every minute we wait, Nomi is doing more damage out there. If there was another solution, we would go with it, but there isn't. Look, I don't believe in God, okay? But this is a fucking miracle."

Lois's eyes are wide, he looks terrified. Uriah sees Quinn's hand crawl over his on the table, and his face relaxes a fraction. For a second Uriah wants to be mad at him, ask him, _What did you expect? Why did you really come here_

"I didn't come here for that," Lois says, his voice shaking, and it's practically begging for the question – Andrew's the one to ask it, "Why did you?"

Lois butts his forehead forward, stubborn. "My uncle – well, _dad_ -," he corrects viciously, throwing a mean look at Thema, "told me on my twelfth birthday that he was birthday. I was living with Patti and Leon until then, he visited a lot, I remember." He frowns. "Anyway, he told me everything. Apparently I'm the only hybrid he knows, and he said it would have been dangerous for Nomi to know because the Mechanics can't have children, so she probably would've wanted to – examine me, I don't know. I asked him who was my mother. He told me."

Something painful surfaces on Thema's face. "I gave Abel something before I left, so he could always find me." She clears the hair on the nape of her neck to show a tattoo, gleaming softly on her skin. Uriah can't help but gape – how many things doesn't he know about her? "I figured I owed him that, at least. I'd forgotten."

Lois almost launches across the table. "Like you'd forgotten about me?" he spits. Quinn's hand on his back persuades him to calm down, but he seethes with such whole-hearted furor that Thema winces, looks away.

Thema links her fingers on the table. "I don't want him going in there," she says; it's the first thing she's sure of since Lois appeared in the door frame the night before, and her eyes are clear, her voice steady. "It's dangerous, and it's suicidal. I'll do anything I have to, it's my job, but he's a child. He's not going."

Andrew's eyes flash, but he contains his filth. "Look, Thema, this is important. This is more than you and I and any problems we have between ourselves. This is about saving this country. It won't even be all that dangerous: all we need for him to do is get in there with a camera, make a recon, get out. Easy as pie."

"What if he gets caught? Do you know what they do with traitors? And you heard him, his father didn't even want him to be _near_ Nomi when he didn't have a crazy mission to complete. I trust Abel's judgment."

Andrew's jaw twitches. "You trust him? He's a Mechanic, Thema! It's bad enough that you slept with him, and had a kid to boot, if you can even call that a son, but now you _trust_ him! For Christ's sake, think about what you're saying."

"You already heard what I had to say on that subject. This is my decision, and it's final."

Uriah's hand finds Thema's under the table; he opens his hand and laces their fingers together. For a second he forgets about the fight, about Andrew, about broken people and bad reasons and tyrants and the inevitability of death, and everything feels right, like it's falling into place. Then he blinks; reality swims into focus.

"Andrew, maybe we can think about this. There has to be another solution."

Thema shoots him a grateful smile.

" _You_ 're the one who suggested this," Andrew snaps, and there it is, Thema's hand slides away. Uriah has said those things a hundred times, _I can explain_ and _it's not what you think_ , he's not a player for nothing, but he also knows that Thema won't take his bullshit and it always is what it looks like. "I won't have those – _freaks_ in my house if they're not going to at least be useful."

"I can -" starts Thema, which is when Lois, whom everyone had more or less forgotten about in the heat of the discussion, speaks up. 

"What about me?"

All gazes focus on him, but he doesn't flinch, turned back to the steely-looking kid who showed up on the doorstep, his eyes locked on Thema like she was a hunting target.

"What _about_ you?" asks Quinn. She seems half-amused, half-terrified – par for the course with her. 

"Doesn't anybody care what I want?"

"You're a minor," Thema says.

"No. I'm a Mechanic, there's no such thing as a legal age. Do you want to see?" He tugs at the collar of his sweater, revealing a mark. There's no mistaking it, really: the big DEDALUS carved in flesh, relief obvious under the fingers. "When I was born I didn't have an ID code, so my Uncle – _dad_ – bought me one on the black market, from one of those people who died in the hurricane last year, and he had it laser-carved on my spine." He looks straight at her, his eyes obsidian. "Do you know how much that hurts? This is all your fault. Everything. I can't go to court, I can't be with humans, I can't be with Mechanics. I grow up faster than them, so if I don't want to be noticed I'll have to keep moving around all my life. This is your fault, _mother_. This is all on you. You made me a freak, and now –" he blinks back tears, his big black eyes unblinking, "now you don't get a say on what I do."

He turns to Andrew. "I want to go." 

*

For a moment everything seems to hold still, breathing poised; the light stops streaming from the window and the indistinct humming coming from the computers seems to dull to nothing. Then, gradually, sound and motion return, their hearts start beating again. Quinn's hand smoothes over Lois's arm, and Thema pushes her chair back, away from both Uriah and her son. Only Andrew, passed the surprise, looks undisturbed by the announcement. 

"Good," he says warmly. "You won't regret it. Nothing will happen to you." Then he catches himself, remembering who, exactly, he's talking to, and he stands up, his chair clattering backwards. "I have to make some preparations. We'll try and go as soon as possible, say, tomorrow morning?"

Lois blanches. Quinn's spindly fingers tangle in the hairs at the back of his neck and he doesn't pull away. "Okay," he stammers eventually, but Andrew hasn't waited for his answer and has already slid back into the living-room. 

"I'm so sorry," Uriah says, turning to Thema. Her face is like a brick wall. 

"Don't bother. If my son dies, I'm holding you responsible."

For once, Uriah holds back all the retorts sizzling on the tip of his tongue: _he's not your son; maybe you should blame yourself instead of me; don't, I love you_. Maybe he's learning. 

He sighs. Thema brushes past him, knocking him back with her shoulder. If there was a door to slam, she probably, but as it is they have to settle for the furious stomping of her boots down the corridor. Lois ducks his head with a muffled sob; once again, Uriah remembers that he's only twelve, and feels a pang of guilt. Like everyone, he doesn't really remember being that age, but it seems to him a pulsing, indistinct period where everything seemed the end of the world. 

"It'll be fine," he says aimlessly.

The kid shows teeth. "What do _you_ know?"

Well, at least he tried. 

As he leaves the room, not really sure who he's running after, he hears scraps of conversation between and Quinn ("You think you can do this?" "I don't know. Do you?" "It doesn't matter what I think." A cough, imperious. "I want to know." "Well, yeah, I think you can do it." "I can do it."). He smiles.

The truth is, he's not sure of that plan either. He doesn't relish the thought of sending a kid in there, but between that and Andrew killing him... he'd like to say he doesn't believe Andrew can do it, and it seems like he doesn't kill humans, but his hatred is profound and true. Uriah knows hatred like that, he's seen it. It never leads anywhere good.

So sure, they're taking a gamble. Isn't that what they're been doing since the beginning? When you look at it, and Andrew would hate it, but it's true, their whole mission is just a collection of odd ends, convenient timing and overhead conversations. Maybe that's just the way they work. Uriah is confident they can manage to kill Nomi entirely by chance. Well. Chance and a little skill. 

"Uriah? Come here."

"What is it?"

Andrew leans his forehead into his hand. "Are you sure we can trust the – Lois? Maybe we should send someone in with him."

"They'll never pass the gates, you know that."

"What if – what if we say they're like, his helper or something? I could go."

"They know your face. Have you missed all those weeks where it was on loop on the TV, with the subtitle, WANTED FOR FEDERAL CRIMES?"

"Ah, yes. That might be a problem. What about you? They don't know _your_ face. And it'll quiet Thema. It's the perfect solution! You accompany him, then you keep an eye on him and take all the information we need. We don't even need a camera, that's the danger reduced by half. It's a great idea."

"It's a crap idea. Why do I always have to play bait?"

Andrew gives a laugh, his eyes shining. "Must be how appetizing you are, my friend."

Uriah decides to ignore that comment. He's taking it as a compliment. "How are you even going to get _him_ inside? It's not like he can just waltz in there, just because he's a Mechanic."

"Believe it or not, I have friends in high places. It'll be a piece of cake, believe me. Maybe this," he looks like he's going to say _freak_ again, but censors himself, "kid is our saving grace, after all." He claps his hands. It's the most excited Uriah has ever seen him, and yes, it's scary. "It's decided, then."

He strides back towards the kitchen, presumably to update everyone on the changes in the plan. Chances which, by the way, Uriah has never said yes to. 

"It's not decided! You decided!"

Andrew turns back to give him his _which means it's law_ face, one eyebrow haughtily raised. Uriah is getting worryingly good at recognizing that face. "Yes. That's what I said. It's decided."

Uriah stifles a groan in his joined hands.

And so the preparations begin: Thema is informed of the changes in the plan and looks slightly more reassured, but not by much; Andrew spends approximately ten hours in the phone sounding important and apocalyptic (Uriah doesn't ask); Quinn and Lois keep whispering in corners and getting friendly, which is endlessly surprising but nice, for both of them. Lois occasionally breaks away from her to look moody and resentful, at least until offered food, and then he's back to normal twelve-year-old behavior. Uriah overhears Thema on the phone with a man he assumes is Abel (he doesn't mean to, honestly; he was just on his way to tell her dinner was ready) and can't help but feel a stab of misguided jealousy. There are fake ID documents being printed, intricate backstories learned by heart (if Uriah remembers well, and he better, seeing how Uriah drilled it in him for the last four hours, Lois is Jeremiah Stratton, a young billionaire who lived most of his life in Boston because of his crippling agoraphobia, of which he was finally cured and Uriah is his manservant ("Manservant, really? We're almost in the 22nd century, come on." Which, of course, only made Andrew (and Lois, because the little bastard is not only a brat, but a sadistic one at that), Joseph ("Can we lay off with the Biblical names? Why not Jesus, while you're at it?" No one listens to him), and they're both conveniently invited to tonight's party). How does that sound?

"Dreadful," Uriah points out with a grimace.

Andrew gives him a scolding look. "Don't be a killjoy, Uriah."

*

At least they got one thing right: the arrogant child billionaire role fits Lois to a Tee. From the moment he gets his tiny suit, ridiculously expensive trainers and ridiculous (and fake) glasses, it's like he slips into the role and instantly becomes ten times more unbearable than he already is. What a dream. 

But Uriah contains himself, reassures Thema that everything's going to be alright while her gaze seems to stab daggers at him, packs the most weapons he can that won't beep at the entrance (Nomi and her staff seems to have understood that sometimes the old methods are the best methods) and a backpack with an assortment of drugs that could knock down not only a horse but also about twelve Mechanics, just in case, and out they go. A swanky Mercedes, the newest model, is waiting for them on the main road, ready to pretend that they've just travelled two hundred miles instead of half a street. He slips into the leather back seat, pretending not to be nervous, focusing instead on his queasy admiration of Andrew for being able to procure a car like that in such a short time. 

"You ready?" he asks Lois. 

The kid scoffs. "More than you, apparently."

Upon which he stuffs himself into the car and resolutely starts staring out the window. Nice. Uriah honestly doesn't know where he got his genes. His father must be a terror.

He turns to the others. "Well. Bye then, I guess. Say good things about me at my funeral."

Thema glares at him. "You better not die. I will rip your heart out, I will."

"I – okay?"

Andrew gives him pretty much the same glare. Did they rehearse when he wasn't looking? "Don't throw this. I'm serious. I'm counting on you. You have instructions, do _exactly_ as we said. And don't talk to anyone."

Uriah thinks about pointing out that he probably will have to talk to someone, or that's he's not the one who's twelve, but that will probably only occasion more glaring, so he settles for sullen silence. Quinn comes up from behind the two other and winds her arms around his neck. 

"You can die if you want," she says softly. "Don't listen to them."

Uriah makes a face behind her back, but hugs back nonetheless. He's not going to lie, he needed it. "Uh... thanks, Quinn. I'll think about it."

After which there isn't much to do but get in the car and bide his time until they get to the Mansion, trying to remember the blueprints and the thousand pieces of information Andrew fed him this afternoon: name of the guests, number of bedrooms, how important the mission is and don't you fuck it up, think about your country, try to slip upstairs and spot the bedrooms, map how Nomi's look, try to see if there's a way to get out without being spotted, and if they've upgraded the security in the last few years. He'll do great. He'll keep his eyes peeled, it'll be fine. 

"God," Lois spits halfway through the trip, "would you settle down? They'll spot you right away if you keep being like this."

Uriah tries to get his leg to stop twitching. "Like what?"

"Like _this_ ," Lois says, making a crude and very much unfaithful impression of Lois, flailing about like a scarecrow. "It's ridiculous. Has no one ever taught you how to behave? My Uncle," he winces and quickly turns his face away, "my Uncle says you always have to act like what you want people to think of you, not what you feel."

Uriah is opening his mouth to point out how stupid that is, and maybe also that the kid's father spent his whole life lying to him, so he's maybe not the best role model, when the driver (which, by the way, Uriah doesn't know from Eve of Adam, but Andrew said he trusted him, and it's not like Uriah can do much more than trust _him_ ) lowers the partition. "We're here," he says shortly. "The President's Mansion."

Uriah sneaks a look from his window. It's... it's certainly impressive. He's seen one of those parties on TV, but no cameras get inside the Mansion. The entire park is milling with fashionably-dressed guests, most of them Mechanics Uriah remembers from the papers, socialites, models, movie stars and business personalities. Their invariably long hair is twisted in ornate confections on their heads and there are diamonds glinting on their fingers; their perfectly symmetrical faces shine softly in the low glow of Chinese lanterns, while silent human waiters weave between the crowd to offer appetizers. Outside, where their own car is currently following the queue of unloading limousines, a sea of black and rutilant vehicles drives in a circle, and doors open to reveal glittering gowns and three-piece suits. Uriah gulps, suddenly feeling cheap in his perfectly acceptable tuxedo.

"Calm down," orders Lois, his eyes like obsidian. If Uriah didn't know better, he would swear the kid does this every day. 

Their driver opens the door and there they go; Lois smiles his snarky grin at everyone who looks their way and they immediately nod and turn away, satisfied that he does indeed belong there. Andrew has to tap his hand discreetly so he doesn't grab a flute of champagne, and the kid throws him a betrayed look. Mechanics barely age: most children in here are models who weren't given the time to mature so Nomi could rush the end of the war, last-ditch soldiers, and they're children only in name. It's easy to see, when you really look: their eyes have that icy, bored glaze, and they walk around like princes, to compensate for their slight frames and lacking sex-appeal. 

It doesn't take much for Lois to start mingling. Once one dignitary starts making conversation, he's in, unfolding his story as if it was perfectly real, utterly at ease with it. Uriah takes the opportunity to slip away and start doing what Andrew asked him to. If he was right, a party means most of the security will be focused on the guests and Nomi and the house will be less protected than usual. It shouldn't take too much for a professional like Uriah to find a way up the stairs and quickly take a few notes; after that he'll just have to join Lois and wait until the end of the night so he can report back to Andrew. This isn't a perfect plan, by far, but it's the best they have, and with a bit of luck the information they acquire tonight could help them capture Asta – and even Nomi, if they're lucky – in the near future. Uriah prefers not to think what they'll do when they have them. He was on board for killing Nomi, yes, but... it's not that he doesn't know that Asta has committed atrocities, too. Even if he doesn't know the details, Quinn shudders every time she hears her name, and that enough would be sufficient to make him want to kill her. It's just – once they start, who is to tell where they stop? Andrew would clearly be comfortable with genocide, and Uriah's well-place to know that everyone is guilty of something.

But that's not the point right now. He smiles at a waitress and she recoils visibly. Well. Maybe laying low is the better technique, then. Not that it matters, because soon he gets to the part of the house behind the kitchens where there is no one. The noise from the park streams in, distant and harmonious. History doesn't really change, does it? Brute horror disguised under layers of elegance and charm. (Like everyone, Uriah has seen the banned images of Nomi with her hands covered in blood, grinning the sort of grin that makes children scream at night; he's seen her in her gown at the Coronation, her smile and her face of stone; he's seen the strewn corpses before the burnings and the crammed cemeteries. There's no mistaking what lurks behind that smile of hers – and yet, when she holds her fist up and spouts her motivational speeches on TV, Uriah can't say that he doesn't shudder and smile, even clap once in a while. Maybe that's what a real monster is. 

He finds the stairway through memory. Not very difficult until then, is it? Thema's code unlocks one of the motion detectors, and he distracts the two guards standing in front of the stairs with the oldest trick in the book, making a noise that forces them to go look while he slips past them. It's really ridiculously easy so far.

The hallway on the first floor is in the darkness, so he dons the goggles (which are hideous, he's happy to be alone) and creeps silently forward). He bypasses the rooms he already knows, makes a few annotations in his notebook when he encounters cameras and security gear, one storage closet that isn't on their plans, a control room at the very end of the corridor, deserted at the moment, thank God. The second level is pretty much the same routine – when he peeps in, his heart hammering loudly in his chest, Asta isn't in hers. She must be at the party, then. Good. And... the Holy Grail. Nomi's room is at the very end of the corridor, not on the sides, like the others, but facing him. The door is heavy, oak, probably, and gilded on the sides. Well. Once he has this, the dimensions, once he's disengaged the cameras and rifled through the drawers (that, too, he knows how to remarkably well; it was a crucial, when he was a kid, that his mother wouldn't know he'd gone through her things to find her bottles), and the balconies, he's all set. There's probably a fence on the other side of the Mansion, where they could possibly snuggle something (or someone) out, but it has to be electrified and there may be dogs, though tonight – no. They're not doing anything tonight. He's not risking his skin _again_. There's no way.

Possessed by a foreboding, he sticks his ear to the door. Better safe than sorry, right? He doesn't hear anything, and he's ready to open the door, when he perceives a faint rustle in the distance. He freezes. Nothing. No, here it is, another – like... like pages being turned, maybe, or clothes folded? The important thing is, there's someone in that room. There is someone in that house, and given that he's seen Nomi at the party downstairs, wearing the tight circle of steel she uses in lieu of a crown in civilian occasions, this can only be Asta. His breath seizes in his chest. Okay. She's sick – from what the notebook said, it means she doesn't have the strength, or the hearing. That means... no, it's not a good idea. He said he wasn't going to risk his skin. Again. 

Oh, for Christ's sake.

*

To his credit, Lois's reaction to being told that they're doing a 180 is remarkably composed. He excuses himself to the minuscule bejeweled heiress he's talking to, gives Uriah a scolding glance, and reluctantly lets himself led away. 

"We have to call them," he says as soon as they're shadowed by the careful darkness of the first floor hallway. The silence is eerie. 

Uriah clucks his tongue. "I know. I've done that already. They're going to be waiting for us at the back fence, help us get her over. Apparently from the recon Thema can un-electrify it, it's going to be," well, maybe not a piece of cake, "easy."

Lois arches an eyebrow.

"Okay," Uriah amends. "It's going to be okay."

Doubt flashes over Lois's face. "Are you sure about this? We're... kidnapping someone."

"Hey," Uriah crouches to be at his level. "It's gonna be okay. Seriously. We're –" his throat seizes, "we're doing the right thing. Your father would be pride."

"You don't know anything about my father," Uriah scoffs, but he looks slightly reassured, which is probably the best Uriah can do. 

"Let's do this," Uriah says. 

Their climb up the stairs is silent. Everything in the world is reduced to their heartbeat, the smattering of particles that constitutes them. Uriah is so focused he thinks, fleetingly, that the world could end again and he wouldn't notice. The light streaming from under the door is tantalizing. We can do this, Uriah thinks, to reassure himself this time.

The floor doesn't creak under their feet. Uriah closes his hand on the rag doused with his made-up chloroform. Everything will be fine. His palm is clammy. Lois is breathing behind him, tiny. Uriah holds his breath to compensate. The light dies suddenly, making Uriah's heart jumps in his chest. Good. It probably means she's gone to sleep, it will just make things easier. A hand on the doorknob. Almost there. Turning... turning. There. There they are. 

The room is dark. They confound in the shadows, but the party downstairs is still raging, strips of sounds whooping into the room by the open window every now and again. The only spot of light is a soft pool gathered at the foot of the bed; in the middle of its orange glow a sharp shadow is cut, its edge straight and black. 

Uriah can feel his heart beating under his jacket and can't decide if it's excitement or fear. Anyone could burst in here at any moment: Nomi, her Militia, the party staff... and yet, here they are, unpunished, silent as they make way into the darkness. Uriah can feel Lois's breathing on his neck, the warmth of him at his side, holding the gun Uriah gave him.

Finally she comes into focus. They knew it, but the sight of her still takes their breath away: Asta in all her splendor, sat with her knees straight, holding a book on her lap. She's only wearing a nightgown, and her hair is streaming around her face in long white waves, like a kind of ocean made only of foam. Like Nomi, she still looks twenty, twenty-five at most, even though she's been behind the throne for more than thirty years. Who could imagine, seeing her, all the horrors that she's perpetrated? Who could even imagine that she was one of them, if the mark wasn't evident under the gauzy fabric of her nightgown?

They come to a stop a few paces from her. They're holding their breath; the only sound in the room is the faint laughter streaming in from a window and the sharp crisp of the pages as she reads. When she reaches a chapter break, she bookmarks the page with the red ribbon, slowly, carefully. Then she sets the book aside, next to her on the covers. She's holding her head straight, looking at her own reflection in the mirror in front of her. 

"There you are," she says softly, just a second before Uriah leaps forward and subdues her, "I was waiting for you."


	11. Chapter 11

**9.**

There's no arrogance in loving beauty. Some people think there is, that appreciating shapes and colors is a sign of elitist breeding, an indication that the mind is too elevated to regard anything mundane as other than distasteful – and it is true, in certain characters. But at its core, beauty isn't elitist. It's a feeling, sharp and potent; it grabs your eye and pulls you in, the sequined shimmering of a gown on the delicate arch of an ankle, the trickle of a song whose harmony reminds you of something you can't really name; the gentle simmer of expectation when you brush your fingers against someone's temples just before kissing them, when you're still looking, storing the memory for when you'll most need it. 

Nomi doesn't think she's being unfair when she says she searches for beauty above all. After all, hasn't the man who created her make sure that she be perfect and symmetrical, the projected image of his own fantasy? And they would blame, because she wants beauty to be part of all things, wants to be bewitched and ensnared; want to bewitch others, and teach them the ways of grace? No. This is her chance, after all. Revenge was her mission, but this is a life she created, a world she molded to her desire, to make it better, more harmonious. And she succeeded. 

So look at her now: queen, president, whatever you want to call it, reigning over a garden full of lights, where the eye can't help but jump from feathered gown to silk tie; where the faces are radiant, the faces of the people, men, women, children, that she freed with her own hand, shedding her own blood. In a way it's a small honor that they made her their queen, because they owe her so much more than that. They owe her the entirety of this, their lives and their land that she cultivated before they came, the humans that she now controls and has put into their service. 

Steel against glass – her fork produces a musical chime, calling everybody's attention. They turn to her like one man, raising their faces to salute her. She searches for doubt – after all, she can't forget Henderson's betrayal, what a foolish man, forgetting his master in times like those – but doesn't find any; satisfied, she inclines her head. Her forehead, encircled with her crown of stainless steel, enjoins them to stand down. 

"Brothers and sisters," she says, waving towards them a glass of champagne, "thank you for being here with me tonight, to celebrate the beauty and prosperity brought forward by the Mechanic reign. You know as well as I that our installation in this country," they don't say 'the Awakening' among her people; only the peasants the humans call it that, "has been largely beneficial. We have ended wars; we have helped medicine and science progress more than ever before; thanks to us, the boundaries of life and death have been endlessly repelled, and for what little due we have asked the humans to pay, we have instituted in their hearts and legal system a tradition of peace."

Applause, but the gazes are slightly vacant, as though they wanted her to finish so that they could return to their enjoyment. Yes, the war was a long time ago, and their species is blessed by memories that fade maybe more easily with time than the humans' does; but is she the only one who remembers standing outside the laboratory that first time and hearing the rattle of bullets in the distance? Is she the only one whose hands are still stained with blood, whose heart sometimes seizes with pure joy for the freedom they so painstakingly acquired? Surely she isn't. 

"Brothers and sisters," she repeats, dropping her cards on the pulpit, and they must feel the change in her voice because they turn to her with expectation, some mouths dropping open at the sight of her, "we are here because we deserve to be here. It is not simply petty revenge, we are not here the wreck the world of those who had the arrogance to call themselves our creators. We are here for good. We are here because our presence is making this world better, richer, and more beautiful. Have you looked around lately? Go on," she motions at them with her hand, her cheeks flushed lightly with the exertion of the speech, "look." So they look: they discover someone they knew, or didn't know, at their side, and the awed look on their faces is owing to her. Wasn't Asta saying it just the other day? She's always been a magnificent public speaker. Asta said: "You could ask them to climb into the sky, and they would do it." A pang of affection tears through Nomi's breast. "We are what nature has that's most perfect. The humans took all their flaws and tried to resolve them in us, and here is what we are, a superior race. But did we leave them, did we let to die on this imperfect earth, did we take to the stars to try and find our own home? We didn't. We stayed here, and we endeavored to fix this land, because that is who we are. We are kings and queens, all of us, not just those with the crowns." Before she can really think, her hand finds the crown in the river of red hair and throw it violently on the gound. "We are healers. We saved this country, and we will continue to save it again, save its economy and its politics and its people. No more wars. No more blood. Amen." The champagne feels heavenly in her parched throat; before her hundred of lips close on the rims of their glasses.

"To us."

The crowd is no longer a crowd, made up of individual beings, but rather the naked stream of blood they all share, their synthetic skin and the hard plastic of their organs, so very _real_. They return her blessing in a heavy murmur that buzzes through her like electricity. When someone touches her arm from behind she doesn't get angry, doesn't yell, still overwhelmed by the feeling. She has gotten used to many things on her time on this earth, but this isn't one of them.

"Mrs President?"

She has to blink to recognize him; the chief of security, Paul Masterson. 

"Yes, Paul, what is it? I'm in the middle of something here." She is; still on the platform, one hand closed around the microphone, and below them the moving organism that is her people sways and holds its breath, expectant.

Paul furrows his brows. "I understand, Mrs President, but this is important. It's your sister."

It doesn't take more to wake her up; the buzzing disappears from her veins and worry pours in its place like ice. "What? What happened?"

Maybe she should have felt it. Maybe she would've, had she not been lost in the conflicting emotions of her memories of the war, where dread and elation confound to produce only something heady and entrancing. Still, she can't help but feeling guilty. Asta is weak. Asta has always been weak, of body at least, and there is only one person to protect her.

Masterson looks up at her; his eyes are shadowed in the half-light and Nomi knows what he's going to say as he opens his mouth again. "She's gone, Mrs President. They took her."

*

The first thing Lois does after they climb the fence is run into the first pair of open arms. It really is only a happy coincidence that they happen to be Thema's: he collapses face-first into her and his small arms squeeze tight enough that he would suffocate her were she a slighter frame. As it is, she only allows herself a second of open-mouthed bemusement before holding him back just as hard, and they're a tight ball of mother and son, reunited, Lois's heart hammering away against the fabric of her T-shirt. He pulls away as soon as he realizes who she is, taking a few hurried steps backwards. Her arms hang forward, limp. For a second it seems as though she was going to try and get him back, but she doesn't. 

She clears her throat. Everyone pretends they weren't looking, surreptitiously wiping their humid eyes. Even Andrew, with his attempts at pretending he's made of stone, is wearing an expression Uriah knows enough to say for certain that it's remembrance. But he turns his attention to Uriah quickly, and to the prize of this expedition: the body of Asta, the queen's sister, stretched unconscious in Uriah's arms. Her hair is streaming on the ground, and Uriah can't help but take a kind of perverse pleasure in that, despite himself. It's covered in mud, a few stray leaves tangled in the white strands. Some queen indeed. 

"She's heavy," he says eventually, when it doesn't look like anyone is going to stop staring. 

Andrew blinks. "Of course. The car isn't parked far. Do you want to..." he holds his arms out somewhat hesitantly.

"I can do it," Thema says.

Uriah can't say he's sorry to unload her in Thema's arms. So what, it's the first time he kidnaps a head of state. Sue him if he's a little jumpy. He wipes his hands on his trousers. "What about the other car? The party?"

Andrew makes a face at Lois. "I'm sorry, you'll have to go back in. They might notice you're gone, and they'll definitely do a screening. Uriah can't come back in there because he's human; once they notice Asta's been taken there's no saying what they'll do to those who were at the party. And besides, it isn't even certain anyone's seen him while he was in there, he wasn't registered."

Lois's eyes widen with fear. "What about me? Won't they do background checks?"

"They'll do them anyway, and it'll take time to go through everyone. You just go back: if they realize before the party, they'll probably keep you all for a while, and let you go as soon as they realize you haven't got her on your person. A lot of people have seen your face, they'll know anyway, whether or go back or not. If you do it's a way to delay your implication. I'm sorry. Just – turn around, okay? I want to see if you've got mud on your clothes."

Lois doesn't budge. "You didn't tell me this. Mother!" he calls, but Thema's already gone, Asta's body gleaming her gauzy white halo in her arms. "You didn't tell me – I wasn't – this isn't –"

Andrew kneels, his face naked and serious. If he's still disgusted by Lois's mere existence, he's doing a good job at hiding it. "I know, I'm sorry. You know this was done on the fly, but we'll protect you. This is what we do," he insists, his eyes intense with a strange kind of fire, "we stick up for each other. We protect each other. Nothing will happen to you, I swear."

For a second Lois looks like he might retort something, snarl an insult, but he just ducks his head, blinking back tears. "Please," he moans softly. 

Andrew's hand raise to his sleeves, but drop back down before actually touching him. "It's gonna be okay. It's just a few hours, I swear. Nothing will happen to you."

It takes a little more coddling and promises, and the intervention of Quinn, whose slight frame emerging from the shadows almost makes Uriah's heart leap out of his chest, but eventually Lois agrees to go back to the party. They hoist him over the fence, make him detail the itinerary one more time from the other side, his face divided in small shadowed diamonds; he disappears furtively, never once turning back. 

"He'll be fine," Uriah says, mostly to himself, but Andrew nods. This doesn't reassure Uriah as much as frighten him.

Thema drives the car back to them, Asta safely strapped and gagged in the backseat. "Where's Lois?" she asks through the window as they slide in.

"We had to send him back," Andrew says, looking carefully away from her.

"What? You're kidding, right? Do you realize how dangerous that is? Once they notice –"

"I know," Andrew snaps, but for some reason Uriah suspects it's more guilt than real irritation. "It would've been more dangerous to take him with us."

"What? That makes no sense." Uriah bites his lip. She's going to drive them off the road out ot anger, he can just feel it. Why does he never get to drive that car? He's the only one in there who's sane most of the time, for crying out loud. "If he were with us, he would be _with us_ , meaning, not with hundreds of Mechanics who will be out for someone's head in a matter of hours, posing as someone he isn't."

"He'll be out of there before the background check, they can't keep everyone in, the country would collapse. Besides, his ID documents are bulletproof, you know that."

" _Nothing_ is bulletproof with those people, don't you know that by now? Aren't you the one always raving about how evil and scheming they are?"

Uriah tunes them out; it looks like they're going to continue on that streak for a while. He can't help sneaking a glance at Asta, and he notices that Quinn is looking at her too, with an intensity he only remembers from when he met her, curled up on her couch, her eyes shining preternaturally out of the darkness. He recognizes the same abject fear as her gaze roams over Asta's face, and just from looking at her you wouldn't believe Asta is so peaceful, her mouth hanging half-open as though she was dreaming (she is not, Uriah knows. It's his drugs, after all. If anything, she's having very colorful nightmares).

He touches Quinn's arm lightly. "Hey." She jumps, a long tremor shaking her body. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," she says in a fervent whisper. "I just want to get out of this car. I can't – I can't take this. Her."

 _What did she do to you?_ Uriah wants to ask; the story Quinn told them is only the bare bones of her truth, and the rest of it still hidden in a careful haze. He takes her hands in his, warming them between his palms. "It's fine. She can't do anything to you anymore."

She nods, but her gaze is distant. "You don't know that. You don't know them. They always find a way to hurt you."

He doesn't know what to say, so he just laces their fingers together, wraps her into an embrace. She lets herself be held for a few seconds before squirming away.

"I'm –," he starts helplessly, "sorry. For everything that happened to you."

She regards him in the darkness, every trace of doubt gone from her face. Her eyes are back to their powerful blue, her smile pithy and unreadable. She gives his hands a quick squeeze. "Don't," she says, and he feels as though her gaze is going right through him and she's looking at something behind him, lost in the whirring darkness outside the car window, "it's not your fault."

*

Maybe she was right, after all, Uriah thinks as they draw towards them the heavy blinds of the house, closing it up after it short use: maybe houses do feel it when they're abandoned, and that's why tonight, at the end of the summer, there's a heavy wind clanging about the foundations, rattling the furnitures, drawing out of the sharp glass of the windows a long high-pitched whine. Then again, maybe it's only Nomi's rage making itself known: Uriah wouldn't be the first to posit that the Red Queen might be an ancient goddess underneath her robot garb.

Either way, the house seems haunted from all sides: everything takes disquieting shapes in the thick velvet night, where not even a shade of blue comes sweeten the blow of darkness. They can only pack silently and hope that Lois comes back to them in one piece, but meanwhile life is all waiting; eventually they're sitting side by side on the couch, not daring to reach over to hold hands, drop a head on a shoulder. Only Quinn, unbothered as always, curls her body towards Thema, feeding unashamedly on her warmth. For a while all there is to do is look at the motionless image of Asta's bedroom on the monitor, knowing that she is still unconscious and tied up in the car behind the house. What they've done doesn't seem inconsequential anymore; what was only a plan to make the world ideal has flipped in the space of one night to a federal offense punished by death, and the knowledge of it creeps in all their skins, distilling its patient fear. 

"We can't stay here too long," says Andrew eventually, his voice startling in the silence. "They'll start putting up barages as soon as they realize –"

"You're the one who sent her in there," Thema snaps without looking at him. "We're waiting until he gets there."

Uriah expects Andrew to argue against it, but he doesn't. Quinn's lank arm winds itself around Thema's shoulder. It surprises Uriah – they've never liked each other all that much – but he doesn't say anything. 

"Your boy did well," Quinn whispers. "You should be proud."

Thema doesn't answer, nor does she shrug off the embrace. After a while Andrew gets up and dismantles the computers silently, putting the pieces back in the cardboard boxes. No one gets up to help him. The house continues howling, as though it were hoping to convince them not to leave. Once in a while Uriah catches Quinn tilting her head, eyes closed, and follow the plaintive whining of the wind. He doesn't comment on it. 

It seems like an eternity before they finally hear the tell-tale sound of gravel being crushed under car tyres, and they shoot up on their feet on the same instinct, almost pushing each other to get outside. Even Andrew is of the tussle, though he's back to pretending that he's utterly indifferent to both Thema and Lois's existence. The car slides on the gravel. A pause; silence falls back down on them, they're waiting for the door to open, what if – 

But the door does open, and Lois's pale face emerges in the frame. He wobbles a little as his feet touch the gravel, but he rights himself soon enough. His face is blank, serious; he looks exactly as he had the day before, showing up on the doorstep of the now-empty house. He tips forward – before anyone else can move, Quinn's hand closes on his forearm. A short second, like someone catching their breath, and they surround him, pressing him between their bodies in a wordless expression of relief. He doesn't move, still frozen, terrified. His cheeks are damp.

He lets himself be carried into Andrew's house, and he keeps silent during the trip back to the New York warehouse, wedged between Thema and Uriah. In the front seat, Quinn keeps her feet up on the headboard, and the car weaves silently through the traffic, even as the radio pours on them its alarmist predictions. If you lend an ear, Uriah is persuaded you can hear the Red Queen yelling in the background. If she only knew... if she only knew that her sister was in their boot, folded like a vulgar human, her beautiful hair bunched and soiled. But he can't quite feel as vindictive as he hoped he would. Andrew isn't exhibiting triumph or vibrant joy either; his eyebrows are furrowed and businesslike, and since they're recovered both Asta and Lois he mustn't have said more than three words, all of them to quiz Lois on the state of the Mansion when he went back in. ("They knew. Nomi was livid," was all they were able to get out of him, collectively.) _Well_ , Uriah could tease him, if the two of them hadn't grown worryingly close, _aren't you happy? Isn't that what you wanted?_

"We've got to carry this to term," is all he deigns to say as the lights finally intensify and the Big Apple, though she doesn't really deserve her name anymore, blinks into sight. 

The time it takes to open the warehouse is more silence and a few grunts as Thema and Andrew remove the planks they'd nailed over the windows so that no one would get too close. A few locks get unlocked, the light is switched on. The five of them in the bleak living-room, swathed in lurid yellow light, and heaped on the sofa Asta's unconscious form. It feels slightly disturbing, and they soon scatter in separate corners of the room. Quinn helps Thema install the computers back, and Thema gets to work as soon as they're turned on, making sure that nothing can be traced back to them – better safe than sorry is Andrew's motto, they all know that by now, and it feels more than a little justified now that they're all potential wanted criminals. The weight of it hangs over them whether they acknowledge it or not, it seems.

"What are you going to do with her?"

It's Quinn, surprisingly. When Uriah looks up she seems entirely unlike herself, her limbs coiled and her eyes hard. She's fixing Asta's corpse as if tearing her eyes away might injure her and she's choosing the best of two evils.

"Like we said," Andrew says coolly. "Use her to lure Nomi here. Shouldn't be too hard, you've seen how she is with –" he glances meaningfully at the couch, "her."

"It's dangerous," Thema intervenes. "Have you never seen a crime procedural on TV? They say they won't talk to the cops, then they talk to the cops, then the villain gets caught or dies. We're the villains."

"We're not the villains," Andrew retorts. "We're the vigilantes. The masked justice."

Quinn snorts. "I don't see you in a mask. I think it would break that high and mighty thing you have."

"She's right," Thema agrees. "What do you think, Uriah?"

"No, she's definitely right. You're not the mask type. Sorry, dude."

Andrew clucks his tongue. "All I'm saying is, it'll be okay. Nomi won't risk her sister's life. I'll tell her we'll kill Asta if she talks to anyone, and that's it."

"Wow, wait." Uriah puts one hand up. "We only talked about killing one person, and it's not her. What's with the change of plans?"

"We're not changing, just adapting. And Nomi will do what I say, so I won't actually kill Asta. See! It all works out."

Thema chuckles, dry. "So what, wait. Assuming Nomi is actually going to show up here, alone and unarmed, which seems very doubtful to me, you'll just – what, kill her? Because that doesn't sound very safe, if you consider the aftermath. You are aware that she doesn't make up the entire government, right?"

Andrew gives her the _I'm not a complete idiot, but you, on the other hand_ – look he usually reserves for Uriah. "I know that, don't worry. You think I haven't had this planned for years? Just because this moron," he nods at Uriah, "came along and disrupted my plans doesn't mean I'm a complete idiot. I'll ask her to resign publicly, demote her government, and imprison the most important Mechanics that could still hurt us. There aren't many human factions that support Mechanic rule, so that should take care of the rest of the problem: once the news get out, the regional rulers will easily be controlled and subdued. If we need to execute a few Mechanics in the process, then so be it; it's not like she hasn't spilled any human blood. Then, I'll kill her. There – satisfied?"

Satisfied maybe isn't the word – at least as far as he's concerned, Uriah can safely say that it's closer to horrified. Thema is the one who actually voices the feeling. 

"You're insane," she says, and there's a creeping, reluctant admiration behind it. 

He focuses his hard eyes on her, unforgiving. "What did you think? That we'd just slit the baddie's throat, and then everything would be okay? You thought I was just fulfilling a private revenge here, and that once it was over you could just collect your cash and your freak son and go back home? This isn't how it works. You knew that."

"How long have you been waiting for this moment? It is personal. Do you think I don't see how much you ache to kill her? You're practically gagging for it," Thema spits. Attacks on Lois are never going to get the best out of her.

Uriah thinks about creating a diversion to keep them from fighting again, but to be honest he's feeling a little lightheaded himself. It would be fair to say that he'd cautiously kept from thinking about the consequences of their collective actions, but he's starting to think that maybe he should have thought a little more before saying yes to this madness. What if Nomi actually comes, what if – will they really kill her? The idea was appealing – free the world from the tyrant, like something out of a children's book –, the reality is less so. _You won't be the one pulling the trigger_ , a snide little voice at the back of his head says. _So what? Does it change anything?_ another one answers. _It changes everything_ , the snide voice retorts. It does, it's true; it really does.

"You're right," Quinn says, her voice like ice, breaking up the fight. She's still looking at Asta. What are they going to do when she wakes up? "We should kill that one, too. I volunteer."

"Quinn," Andrew says. "We can't kill her, not now. She's useful to her."

"She's a monster. Isn't that what you said?"

"Well, sometimes you've got to bide your time, you know. Sometimes it's better to wait until you do the right thing."

Quinn laughs at his face, meanly. "Bullshit. It's just a matter of revenge, you and I both know that. You want to kill the other one more, that's all."

And she disappears out of the room, leaving only behind her a wall of stunned silence. 

*

There's no two ways about it, what they're creating is a makeshift cage. The neighborhood is full of decaying garbage dumps and the night is busy, red, burning over the rooftops; no one notices them moving with armfuls of twisted metal, too busy sticking their noses to their mini-laptops and the news scrolling down on their watches to care about what a few bums get up to. There's something reassuring to that anonymity now that they know for sure that they're wanted criminals, that everyone is out here searching for them. They must be waiting, Uriah thinks with a pang of misguided guilt. They must be waiting for someone to contact them and demand a ransom. Nomi is probably out of her mind. 

Back into the house, the cage is progressing. A few twists of metal are pointing inwards, but Uriah is the one to fix them, Andrew won't go to any lengths to make Asta's sojourn in their hands the slightest bit more comfortable. She'll be waking up soon, but she'll be disoriented and even weaker than she is in her normal state which, even though diminished, is still that of a Mechanic body. Inside the cage they install a chair; on one of legs Andrew prematurely snaps a pair of stolen handcuffs. Better safe than sorry, indeed. 

Thema doesn't reappear, and after a while Lois, still pale from the trials of the night and unable to get any comfort from Quinn, disappears up the stairs as well. Uriah catches himself hoping that he's going to her, but what do they have to say to each other, after all? He wonders idly how the father let him go, why no one has checked on him yet. But it's only been two days. The realization shakes him, and he hovers back on his heels, rocked.

Quinn swans back into the room a few minutes before Asta is scheduled to wake up. It's not an exact science – and in fact, no science is exact –, Uriah has warned Andrew already, but nonetheless, they're waiting, Asta arranged haphazardly on the chair like a disturbingly lifelike doll. 

"I'll watch her," Quinn offers off-handedly, throwing Asta – or the cage, who knows – a disdainful glance. "I know you want to wait, make Nomi stew in her juices so that she'll agree to come here alone. I'm not stupid either, you know. You should sleep."

"No," Andrew says simply, fierce. 

Quinn rolls her eyes. "I won't kill her. Do you think I believe one minute that you wouldn't kill _me_ on the spot if I did it?"

"What makes you think I believe you wouldn't be willing to die? For all that I know –" he hesitates, doesn't finish the sentence. 

Quinn flinches. "You're right." A pause. "You have another pair of those handcuffs, don't you? Go on, handcuff me to a chair. I'll watch her. I'm too weak, I can't get out. You have your cameras, and once the drug purges out of her system, even handcuffed, she'll be stronger than me."

"Why do you want to do this?"

"Why do you care? I have my reasons, you have yours. Let's stick to that, okay?"

Uriah watches the emotions war on Andrew's face. It's subtle enough that someone who didn't know him would only see his usual go-to stony expression, but Uriah can see clearly that Andrew is hesitating between needling Quinn, telling her that he does care about her story (even though he knows, he must know, at least part of it), and refusing flat-out. 

"Fine. Alright."

On the chair, Asta opens her eyes.

Silence creeps into the empty spaces; in the scope of her tyrant's gaze Quinn seems to progressively get smaller, her limbs coiling tightly as if she was ready to jump. When Uriah lays a hand on her elbow, she jumps. 

"Are you sure you want to be left here with her?" he asks, cautious. He doesn't see this ending well, honestly. 

"I'm not sleepy," she answers. 

After that there's nothing to be gotten out of her; she lets herself be cuffed to a chair, Andrew prefers not to take chances and it's probably better – despite what she said Uriah doubts anything could stop her from killing Asta if she decided to. He knows what trauma does to people, to survivors: there are the ones it makes stronger and the ones it breaks, but in all of them there's the same reservoir of darkness, the violent and irrational rage aimed at their tormentor. It is from situations like that that the newspapers report people walking on coals, delivering one last bullet with a spear through the stomach – the sheer strength of the human mind when it's dedicated to hatred.

Andrew camps himself on his feet in front of the cage. "Hello," he says.

Asta gives him a strangely coy smile. "Hello, Andrew. I should've known you'd come."

The surprise is what makes Uriah turn to Andrew, but his face is fixed in the same expression, eyes widened, mouth hanging slightly open. Eventually he catches himself, and his fists harden at his sides. "Don't play games with me."

"I'm not. Didn't your mother talk about me? Or..." she nods at Quinn through the bars, undisturbed by her murderous gaze, " _her_?"

"Of course I know who you are," Andrew throws, and she cocks her head, flattered. "How do you know _me_?"

"I could say," Asta lays her hands cleanly on her knees, the silver of the cuffs like an accessory on her wrists, "I could say Nomi and me saw you on TV, and we know about the criminals in our country, Andrew, we do. We're very interested in them. If you weren't such an obstinate fanatic, we probably would've recruited you a long time ago. We like people like you, determined, ruthless. But that's not how I know."

Andrew is grinding his teeth so hard Uriah is surprised they aren't turning to dust. "How?"

"Story-time..." she hums, her eyes glinting. "But I don't think your friends would like to hear what I have to say. Would you like a little _tête-à-tête_ , then?"

"Andrew," Uriah grabs his arms, jolting him out of his rage-induced trance, "she's messing with you. You can see that as well as I. We'll question her tomorrow, when our heads are in order."

"Yes," Asta pipes up from her cage, reclining her head against the metal, "maybe that's a better idea. Keep the truth hidden as long as you can, right? It's all going to come out sooner or later."

For once, Andrew actually listens; he takes the keys from Quinn, tells her again that she better not kill the hostage, and disappears up the stairs. Uriah sighs. 

"You're gonna be okay?" he asks Quinn, who doesn't answer, locked in a staring competition with Asta. Uriah still can't really look at her: standing in the living-room of a hidden warehouse with the Red Queen's twin sister is still a little too surreal for his taste. 

The night is short and full of nightmares. At least this house doesn't howl with the wind like the other one, but the presence of a more than one murderer in the house, one of them separated from them only by a thin surface of metal, is enough to disturb the soundest sleeper, which none of them are. Screams, never reclaimed by their owner, pierce the pale darkness; the radio is left on and provides an alternatively anxious and angry background hum.

It's six when Uriah wakes up but he feels like he went to sleep five minutes ago. His back is aching and his eyelids feel paper-thin, pierced by the sick morning hues the skies are taking outside, a worrying mixture of plum and swirling pink. Despite being still blanketed in silence, the house feels agitated, like someone is mumbling too low for everyone to hear, worrying prophecies about the future nobody can quite understand. Uriah splashes his face with water to clear his head; it doesn't do much good, and he considers himself in the bathroom mirror, dripping, his eyes circled with purple. God. Maybe he should've remained a low-level drug dealer, it was definitely better for his health. 

He passes by Andrew's room in his way to the staircase. The door is slightly ajar, and he can't help but pushing it open a little. Andrew would want to be waken up, he thinks to justify his curiosity, even though it is probably true. The room... is really what could have expected from Andrew. They've only been here for a night, but where Uriah's floor is strewn with clothes discarded in a tired haze, a half-empty pack of cigarettes and his laptop still open on the bedside, Andrew's space is clean, spartan and ruthlessly elegant. He's taken the room with the Northern window, and it's open, the chilly wind streaming in and ruffling the pages of one of the notebooks, open at the middle on Andrew's bedside table. The clothes are folded, the shoes parallel, and Andrew himself sleeps like he's faking it, his arms straight along his body. Does he never relax? Uriah feels a pang of pity Andrew would probably kill him for. 

He reaches a hand, taps Andrew's shoulder. "Hey, An –"

And that's a gun. Pointing at his forehead. Great.

The surprise passed, when his heart stops hammering, he pouts. "I really thought we'd moved past that."

Andrew blinks; eventually he lowers the gun, though not without some reluctance. "Don't surprise me like that," he says, gruff. 

"Believe me, now I won't. Do you seriously keep a gun under your pillow? Are you actively trying to be every murderer cliché on this side of the hemisphere?"

Andrew glares. "I'm trying not to get killed."

"Eh, that works too."

"Now get the hell out and let me get dressed."

"Ay, captain!"

Predictably, Andrew takes about twenty seconds to get dressed, shaved and ready for his share of the day's interrogations, blackmail schemes and other festivities. But it's not like Uriah is going to say that he spent half an hour sitting on his mattress chain-smoking to get the courage to actually get out of his room. No one needs to know. 

Thema is already in the kitchen when they get down, staring down her bowl of cereal like it's personally offended her. "We need to do grocery shopping," she says as soon as she sees them. "The cereal is stale, and it's pretty much the only thing we've got to eat."

"Good idea," Andrew snarks vindictively, "let's all go outside now that we're wanted criminals, why not. It's not like we have things to do more important than grocery shopping."

Thema shrugs, unruffled. "It's fine by me if you want to starve to death before completing your genius plan. Though I might remind you that there's one robot in this house, and it isn't you."

"There's –" Uriah can feel the dig about Lois coming as though he was the one making prophecies, so he decides to intervene.

"Not that morning mutual massacre between friends isn't fun, but we do have to take care of the – you know –, before Quinn does actually kill her."

It does the job of focusing the two of them, and Uriah grabs the cereal pack before following them to the living-room, where Quinn is... asleep on her chair.

"Well," Uriah says, since his job now is apparently to cut the tension, "at least she's not lying in a pool of blood." He nods at Asta, who's looking at them with an amused smile on her face. "And she's still here."

"Wouldn't want to miss the show," Asta quips. "I'd forgotten how fun your little friend was. Such a shame she left us so early. Thank you for letting her entertain me." Quinn shivers in her sleep.

Andrew ignores Asta with much more poise than the night before; he turns to Thema, all conflict forgotten. "Okay," he says, and if Uriah didn't know better, he would think he was nervous, "let's do it."

They gather around the phone; even Asta keeps silent as it rings, slowly, the shrill sound echoing in the room. At the fifth ring, Nomi's voice – "Yes."

Andrew inhales silently. "We have your sister," he says calmly. "Be warned, if you try to contact the police, the Militia, or send anyone after her, we will know, and we will kill them and your sister. You are to present yourself at a location determined by our choice, where we will exchange your sister for yourself. We will not accept money, or bribery. We will leave you time to think about it, and call again in one hour to get your answer and give you the location. If anyone else is on the call, we will kill your sister. If you try to trace this number, we will kill your sister." He hangs up.

"Well," says Asta's musical voice after a stretch of silence, "how you changed since you were a little boy."

Andrew ignores her. "The call can't be traced, you're sure about that?"

Thema nods. "I've rerouted it through about thirteen Asian countries, there isn't going to be any problems on that front. Their experts don't know half of what I do on that front," she assures. He knows it to be true: street science has evolved in a way Mechanic science hasn't those last few years, and though they've tried to recruit the best hackers, most of them are fiercely loyal to the human cause and are now working for the new Resistance.

Quinn spasms on the chair. The back of her head hits the wood, and she gives an anguished cry, like a name cut short. "Where –" she chokes on her own breath, her eyes wide. 

Uriah rushes to her side. He collects her into his arms and she crumples like paper. You wouldn't believe she's got almost ten years on him like this, her forehead butting against his chest, her breathing ragged and harsh. Her head snaps up. "What happened? What –"

"You fell asleep. It's fine."

"What about – is she still here?"

"Yes," Uriah assures her, trying to sound soothing. "We're fine. Everything's fine."

Quinn struggles out of his arms. "Everything won't be _fine_ ," she spits, "as long as that – _swine_ is still breathing."

Asta gives her a thin, cool smile, her arms still crossed over her chest. "You know," she says wonderingly, "I think technically your species are the one connected more closely with pigs. In fact, you should have heard Jackson scream, I assure you it sounded distressingly like –"

Quinn lunges forward, her hands grappling at the mixed metal. Asta's eyes turn to stone. "Contain your enthusiasm, darling. I understand this is an emotional reunion, but –"

Uriah closes his arms around Quinn's waist. She lets him, but even as she turns into his grip, loosening into an embrace, she beats his chest with her fists, her face red and streaked with tears. The nail polish is now only a thin streak on the border of her nails, more pink than orange. Her shoulders slump, wracked with sigh-like sobs.

Asta turns her snake eyes towards Andrew. "Youths these days," she curls her lip. "You say the slightest thing and they fall apart. What do you think, Andrew, dear? I'm sure you've got more reserve than that. But – oh, I forget. We haven't finished our conversation of yesterday night, have we? Silly me."

Despite themselves, they're all listening to her. Uriah could try to stop her, but he knows, like everyone, that secrets neevr stay hidden for long when they're at that stage, the lid of the Pandora's box already half disengaged, hanging in the air, taunting and tantalizing. She enjoys it; the sight of them hanging at her every word has her eyes gleaming. She points her chin. What a shame, so much beauty wasted on a person like that. 

"So I was right, he didn't tell you? Oh, this is fun. You really should know better than to keep anything from your friends, Andrew darling; you know what it did to your grandfather." She rakes her gaze over them, appraising. Andrew's fingers curl around the knife Uriah knows for a fact he keeps in the inseam of his jacket. He prepares to jump, even with Quinn still gathered against his chest. She's holding her breath, her heart hammering at half a beat tempo with his.

"Guilt," says Asta, licking her lips. She gets up on her feet; upright, she looks like a saint, like she towers over them all, "is the most powerful motivator. Andrew... what is it you call yourself? _Reyes_. Clever, if a little arrogant, don't you think?" She snaps her fingers; the smirk at the corner of her lips becomes downright malicious. "Let me see if I can find the real one. Andrew, Andrew... Dedalus, was it?"

Her cool laughter blooms like a bloodstain in the silence. 

*

"They're bluffing. They can't kill her."

No one dares contradict her. It's always been Asta's job – in the half-darkness of their room she invariably is the one to bring Nomi back to reason when her rage or her recklessness loses her. Her ministers are feckless, puppets, and they're standing around her now like a tribunal, preemptively eructing Asta's sentence with their empty eyes. 

"Answer me!" she yells; the red hair flies around her like a whip. 

The Chief of a Secret Service, a starch, severe man, clicks his heels at her. "We've got to consider every possibility, Ma'am President. For all we know, they've already," Nomi glares; he swallows, "and we all know you can't go to that meeting. When they call back, tell them that you'll go, and we'll send a squadron."

"They'll have prepared for that," she says irritatingly. "Am I the only with a brain in this room? They've obviously prepared for something like that. They'll probably have the place rigged with explosives. They managed to take Asta without any of you people knowing about it, for Christ's sake!"

"You can't put your reign in jeopardy now, Madam President. The public doesn't know Asta, they won't care if she dies. We'll hold a beautiful funeral."

It's the wrong thing to say, they all know it: silence blankets the room, and Nomi turns to her victim, her eyes like fire. "A _funeral_?" she asks, worryingly calm. "You want to hold a funeral with my sister?" Her voice drops, and she hisses, "I could have you killed you with a word, Chief. I could snap my fingers and have you tortured and shot, right here, right now, and no one here would say a word in your defense. You'll leave this room right now and focus the entirety of your forces on finding my sister. Am I making myself clear?"

The Chief nods, gulping. "Yes. Yes, Madam President," he amends quickly.

She turns to the assembly of generals and security officers. "The next one of you that offers to give my sister up," she says icily, "I will have personally executed. Find her."

A few of the generals stream out the door, ready to follow her instructions; as soon as they're out of the door, Nomi sits at the table. Her head feels like a gong. How could Asa have been taken, of all things, of all people? "Where is this man we sent, what's his name, Hector? Tell me you've got news."

Behind the dark back of their computers, two FBI agents duck their heads. Nomi shoots up like an arrow. "What happened?"

They turn the screen, slowly, until she can see: Hector, who she'd personally picked to retrieve Asta without too much fuss, lying face-up. Nomi counts without really meaning to: twelve bullets, and the telltale open skull. She's never met him, but the photo of Andrew Dedalus on the desk, grinning up at her unrepentantly, seems to be whispering, _you can never be too sure, with them._

She yells. Her scream pierces the wooden table, her lungs, the ceiling – it goes up and up, purifying until it's only a long ringing sound, a bell, a stretch of silk. They don't call her the Red Queen for nothing. She's not a human and she's not a Mechanic – she's more than all of them, an iron fist in a body of steel, a god. When she looks down at them again they see her transmogrified, elevated by preemptive grief and seething anger to something they dare not think about too long, for fear of burning their eyes blind. 

"Find her."

*

_Are you scared, sister? Did you not have many a dream like this, where they realized that the oppression was only in their mind, and that they could rebel, and win? Are you afraid, sister?_

_And are you in mourning, sister? You know you cannot give up your crown, I wouldn't love you without a crown, no one would love you without your crown except life, who would cling to your body until the end of time. Don't we know better, you and me – don't we know that death is only the other side of the same coin, only another dive into the unknown? Haven't we always been like this, sister – haven't we always been unafraid?_

_Are you scared, sister? Did you not tell many times of a day like this, a day that would come where you could not run, and would be left behind, and I would only be your little love from afar, and your head would bleed even though you have never worn that crown? Are you afraid, sister?_

*

Asta isn't talking. As the hours pass she closes down on herself more and more, and if they didn't know better they would think she's afraid. She's even given up on taunting Quinn, and it was her favorite game, now that she's given up Andrew's secret. 

They don't talk about that.

"So you –" Thema started after they got over their surprise, turning an accusing eye on him. 

His lips thinned. "We can talk about that when all this is over."

She agreed, and so they will. Still, Uriah can't help thinking about it. It seems obvious, now, of course – Andrew, the mysterious Andrew, who refuses to talk about his past or his family. Doesn't it make sense that he be the grandson of the very man who created the creatures he wants so hard to annihilate? It mustn't be easy, wearing a name like that, the name of the man from whose hubris all their misfortunes originated. Now when Uriah looks at him he can almost see the guilt rotting inside him, turning his insides black. How much does it hurt, to have to turn away every time you see one of them, because they wear your name on their skin, where everyone can see? Of course he hates them all.

He doesn't know how to feel about it, honestly. Pity at his destiny? Disappointment at being betrayed? Anger that he didn't tell? It just seems so inconsequential, now that Asta is there in a cage three feet from him, now that there's an assassin lying dead on the living-room floor with twelve cases of steel in his stomach and one ensconced squarely between his eyes. The parquet will probably never recover. 

The others look about as stunned as him. Lois has finally woken up and joined them; Quinn had to herd him out of the living-room to keep him from seeing the body, and though Thema sprang forward, a deep line barring her forehead, she didn't follow. She doesn't seem all that upset about the news of Andrew's ancestry, and Quinn said quickly that she knew, entirely unapologetic. It seems fitting, somehow, and Uriah can't help but be remembered of one of the first impressions he had, as they left Captiva, that the two of them were much more similar than appeared at first glance.

Their reaction doesn't matter much, anyway. All there is to do now is wait until the hour is passed, and then the world will change forever: Uriah is slowly making his peace with that. He sits on the floor, next to the corpse, careful not to dip the tip of his shoes in the pool of blood that's stopped expanding and is slowly coagulating. It's the last of the summer heat; in a few weeks it'll be autumn rain again, the light sprinkle that rings the return of the school year. It feels a universe away from them, somehow. 

Thema resists a little longer, standing vigilante with her fists closed over her guns, ready to jump at any leap for freedom Asta tries to make. Eventually, though, even she realizes that Asta doesn't intend on moving, and she sits next to them, shoving Andrew a little with her shoe to get him to move over. It's a minute before Uriah realizes that they're sitting in a demi-circle around the corpse, as though it was their dinner. He thinks about laughing, or remarking on it, but in the end he feels more like throwing up. He doesn't say anything. 

The hour ticks away slowly. Asta turns her face towards the wall so they can't see her anguish. Andrew gives up, his shoulders slumping heavily. "My mother asked me, before she died," he says. 

"What?"

"She asked me to take over. She was the one... before me, she was the one who tried to kill Nomi. All her life. She built the mission, she prepared everything, and every time she failed. It ruined her health, and my childhood. I – we were living with my grandmother at the time, and eventually my grandmother died. My mother had to take care of me, but I could see she was only waiting to go back to it. When she was on a stake-out near the Mansion she found Quinn on the ground, almost dead, and she helped her. Quinn... she'll tell you. Something happened to her on Captiva, but she was always faithful to my mother. And then she fell ill, and she asked me, before she died, to help me clean her name. What could I say? So I devoted my life to it. That's all. There's nothing more to it."

Thema gives a soft laugh. "It's a lot. I just can't believe..."

"I know. That's why I knew where the notebooks were, that was my grandfather's laboratory." His eyes take on a distant look; Uriah can feel that he's not exactly talking to them anymore. "You know, I wonder too, how someone would do something like that. I mean, with a brain like that, you could do anything, and then... why?"

Thema leans forward. She looks exhausted; Uriah stuffs his hands under his thighs to resist the urge to run his hands over her cheeks, kiss her tired eyelids. "I guess it gets lonely, being a genius. Maybe he just wanted someone he could talk with."

Andrew gives her a reprobative look. "You know as well as me how it happened. He was commissioned –"

"History is relative," Thema says gently. "There are a thousand threads, and we only pick the ones we like, the ones we deem 'believable'. Your grandfather isn't only what the history books say he was. History is written by the winners. You'll get your turn someday."

Uriah is about to say something in agreement with her, when Asta's voice rises behind them. "It's time," she says. 

And when they turn to the big metal clock fixed to the wall, it is. They unfold, suddenly nervous and self-conscious. The phone is prepared, and Asta doesn't blink once as they call Nomi and specify the place of the meet – not far from there, but far and empty enough to notice if Nomi has disobeyed and alerted the police or brought a team with her. Thema's resorted to Irina's expert help once again to procure explosives, and has her sworn to secrecy when it comes to the Resistance ("It's okay, I don't like them that much anyway, I've always though they were a little stuck-up. And don't get me started on that Rick Cho."); the place is wired, and at the slightest sign of trouble there'll be someone to press the trigger. They can't ignore, of course, that one of them might get caught in the bonfire, but it's the final hour and they're decided, more united than they've ever been before. On the other end of the phone, Nomi listens without saying anything; she only breathes quietly, humming to signify her agreement once every so often. Her sister's eyes are fixed on the phone, she's craning her neck, as though she were wishing she would disolve so she could slide through the handset and join her Red Queen again. 

Andrew hangs up. He breathes out, solemn. From the cage, Asta makes a keening noise, maybe a laugh and maybe a sob. 

*

"You have to make a decision, Madam President."

Now she wishes she could be stripped of all her made-up titles, if only someone would give her her sister back; she would happily give up her crown, her throne and her kingdom, her castle, which isn't exactly a castle –

"Madam President."

If only she could keep them from talking, will them all into nonexistence, and for a second have Asta back by her side, breathing the same air, skin touching skin; she wouldn't need anything more, love would be the food of all foods. Maybe there is her mistake, wanting too much, like her creator – maybe his hubris poured into her when he made blood run through her veins, and now –

"Prepare your team." Her voice isn't hers; it belongs to another entity entirely, who killed Stephen Dedalus and the people of Florida and Asta's little servant, and all the others. "We can't take any chances: find where they're hiding. I want the new helicopters, and for the bombs, nothing too heavy. I don't want you blowing up half of New York – I expect they're still in New York, they couldn't have moved very far since yesterday – by mistake."

"Yes, Madam President."

She feels the salute more than she sees it. She doesn't return it; her limbs feel heavy, made of stone. Isn't she? She's read the Bible, like all those other books – if it is, indeed, that one that tells the best truth, isn't she fated to return to dust? One minute or a hundred years from now, what difference does it make, in the end? 

She lowers her head. If she survives this, she'll have lost half her fire. Kill a beloved sister. But the sister would want it – nothing runs in Asta's blood more than power, even love for her own sister. It's a kindness. It's an honor, it's the good, the noble thing to do. There have been difficult decisions before. No – Nomi's heart feels like it's being torn apart. Hasn't be been built to be stronger than the humans – oughtn't she have a stronger heart, too? Of course it would be now that she finds all the faults in her own design. 

"I'll give you the signal when I'm ready. Now leave."

They comply. When they close the door it's like all the air has vacated the room with them: Nomi collapses on the floor, weaker than any human has ever been, and cries to the last of her synthetic tears. 

*

"She's not here."

Andrew clicks his tongue irritatedly. "I can _see_ that. Please, do narrate everything that happens, even though we all have functioning eyes."

Uriah ignores him. They're all nervous, it's ten minutes since the time they signified for the meet, and Nomi isn't here. Lois has insisted to tag along, so there they all are, Quinn hovering over the edges of their little group, Thema camped firmly on her feet, strapped with her usual weaponry, Andrew heading the parade, his hand curled so hard around Asta's arm it's leaving white marks. Uriah is hanging back with Lois, throwing anxious looks around them. It's a good thing they've got explosives, but he'd rather the day not end with all of them reduced to marshmallow crisp. 

"She's not coming."

"She could still be coming," Quinn says senerely. 

"She's not. We're – fuck –" Though he doesn't loosen his grasp, Asta looks pleased. She smiles thinly, tilting her head slightly. 

"Well," says Thema, "what do we do now?"

"Game over," Asta pipes up. "How sad for you, that your little trap didn't work."

Andrew throws her a venomous look. "There's still one possibility."

"What?"

Andrew nods coldly at his prisoner. "We could kill her. This is guaranteed to get her attention, and it's not like she doesn't deserve. If you're all too squeamish to do it, I will. Or Quinn, why not?"

They're about to protest, try to bring him back to reason, when a voice rises from behind them, calm and composed and impossible not to recognize. 

"There's no need to go to such lengths, Mister Dedalus," it says coolly. "I'm here."

They turn like one man. The figure, tall, is wearing a silken hood; but they know what face is hiding behind it well before pale hands pushes it back and reveal the scarlet mane of Nomi Brulée, the Red Queen.


	12. Chapter 12

**10.**

"Well, aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?"

Andrew snaps out of his trance. He takes a step towards her but, as though repelled by an invisible wall, stills. "You," he spits, his jaw tight. 

Nomi gives him a cold, teeth-filled smile. "How perceptive. I've got to say, I hoped a little more from you, seeing how our families have always been..." her eyes glint, mean, "close."

He ignores her words, though Uriah honestly wouldn't be surprised if he ended up with bruises. He can almost feel, palpable in the frozen air, the way they hurt.

It's a few moments before Andrew regains his footing; against his side, Asta is leaning forward, maybe without even realizing it, straining towards her sister as though they were the two sides of a same magnet. Andrew clears his throat, and Nomi's eyes snap back to him, harden. 

"How do I know you don't have your people with you, hidden..." he makes a large motion, encompassing the whole of the park where they're standing, "ready to take us out?"

"You don't. But if I had someone would already be dead, don't you think?" She sways on her feet, reaches a hand to touch the outstretched petals of a red flower in a nearby shrubbery. "It seems you and I cannot live in the same world, as hard as we try." Suddenly she spots Quinn and her face lits up, she laughs, loud and unabashed. "Is this -" she turns towards Asta, points, "is this your girl, sister? Well." She strides forward; everyone recoils on instinct, except for Quinn and Andrew. Nomi takes Quinn's face between her fingers, pressing hard as though she were inspecting a slave. "We've gone to a lot of trouble for you, haven't we, sister? You made me very angry once, people paid for that." She sees something on Quinn's face, laughs again. "Oh, you saw, didn't you? It's only fair, I suppose. There weren't enough coffins to bury them all, sadly. No wonder you're here now... bad seeds only ever grow rotten flowers, it seems."

Quinn finally struggles out of her grip, holding her jaw. She's glaring daggers, but she doesn't say anything. Nomi keeps looking at her, amused, until she turns back to Andrew. "But I'm forgetting myself. We have business, you and I, Mechanic Killer – don't we?" 

He nods, as though he doesn't trust himself enough to talk. Nomi sees it, and smirks. "A ridiculous name, if I say so myself. But I don't control public opinion, as much as you want to besmirch my good name in all the ways possible, I'm sure. Why don't you lead the way? You have a camera, I trust?"

Andrew doesn't move. "You're really going to do it?" he asks, his skepticism clear. 

They're all hanging onto her lips – history is bound to repeat, isn't it? But they're not a crowd of glittering slaves, they're not her kind, her brothers and sisters, as she'd put it then, as her sister was being laid down and drugged, carried on her kidnapper's shoulder; they're a family of harried travelers, instead, they're wild dogs and this here might not look like it but it's a fight to the death, because it can't anything else. They're tired, hopeful, righteous, and yet there they are – hanging to her every word, the sister and the fighter and the avenger, the mad girl, the tag-along, all of them. _You're really going to do it?_ She enjoys it, it's obvious. 

"Yes," she says finally, and as she says it she seems to realize – there's no cameras she's alone in a dusty park with the cold summer sun beating down on her, and what she's saying is – "you have my sister. You won. What do you need more? Do you want me to kneel?"

He would. He would ask her that, but he doesn't, his mouth is a tight line and he says, "Okay. Let's go."

"You believe her?" Thema cries out. "It's obviously a trap. You can't trust her, you know you can't."

"You heard what she said. If she had her people with her we would be dead already."

She crowds closer to him. "They probably realized we had explosives; the minute we step out of range they'll on us. We should do this now."

"We don't have anything. All the documents are back at the warehouse, and the cameras, you know that as well as me."

"I still think broadcasting this is crazy. You don't know, someone might recognize where we are and in three seconds we have three SWAT teams surrounding the house."

"Thema. We have the two most powerful people in the entire country. We're literally holding knives to their throats. I don't see what they can do."

She crosses her arms on her chest, stubborn. "Aren't you the one who's always saying better safe than sorry?"

He rolls his eyes. "There's 'safe', and then there's paranoid. Let it go. We're wasting time, which, by the way, is infinitely more dangerous than anything else." He sighs when he sees that she's still not convinced. "We need to broadcast this. Signing papers doesn't mean anything, you know that well as me. Not to mention that when Nomi – they'll say we've tortured her and that makes the documents null and void. We need everyone to see this. Trust me. Do you trust me?"

Uriah can't help but look at her then, worried – why would she trust him? He insulted her and her child, he ignored almost every single piece of advice she gave, he lied to her – to them – about pretty much everything, but – "I trust you," she says; Uriah's only half-convinced that she's trying to convince herself.

"Let's go."

He makes a short motion, and Uriah and Thema move like one man; Thema's gun presses into the small of Nomi's back, and she nudges it a little to get her to walk. Nomi smirks. "You trained them well."

They ignore her. Lois slips from Quinn's side and sidles with Thema wordlessly. Nomi gives him a curious look. 

"You're robbing the cradle, I see," she mocks. Then she spots his mark, "Oh, what do we have here? Is he – is that a mark? Where did you get him?" She cranes her neck, probably trying to determine if Uriah or Thema are Mechanics too. "Is he from the new generation? No, he can't – wait. Is he a hybrid? Oh, that's fascinating."

Andrew turns around; the nose of his gun finds his place at the center of Nomi's forehead. "Shut up," he says, his face closed and stern. 

Nomi laughs. "Aren't you adorable. But okay, I won't talk."

She keeps to her word; for the rest of the way back to the warehouse she doesn't talk. They take winding roads they're cleared beforehand, and make Nomi draw her hood back up. She's still noticeable, a face everyone knows, but with her hair bundled at the back of her neck she's just another woman with unusually sharp features, who gives this unshakeable feeling that she might be a stranger. Her and Asta exchange looks that seem to hold their own private meaning. 

The rest of the party keeps silent too, not because there isn't anything to say but rather because too much, and they're afraid they'll let something spill out – because they're anxious and afraid, taut like bow strings. If they come too close, Uriah is half-convinced the wind will tear a musical whine out of them, the high-pitched complaint of doubt. Lois walks close to his mother's leg. From time to time she looks down at him with covert awe, and when she looks back up at the back of Nomi's neck a smile hovers over her lips for a few seconds, faint, before fading.

*

Nomi rubs her hands together. They'll cuff her, later, if they think about it. She could kill them all without blinking. 

"Right," she says, a smile still quirking her mouth, though Uriah suspects it's more for show than anything else, "how do you want to do this?"

"I don't want anyone to question our impartiality," Andrew says without looking at her. She laughs, but he ignores her. "I know someone at NBC, they should be here soon. They'll document our whole encounter." 

Nomi nods. "What about Asta? Are you going to let her go?"

"No. She's our leverage. Once we release her, we have no idea what you'll do; for all we know, all your snipers are waiting for is a sign from you. Belive me," he says, and suddenly his rage is not hidden, is blooming on his lips, immense and terrible, "one of us _will_ die today, and it won't be me."

"Is that right? You're going to – what, shoot me? No, that's not your preferred MO, is it – you're going to gore me like you did all those innocent people in front of a camera? Maybe you _are_ braver than I thought, Andrew Dedalus. Or more stupid, I can't tell; your grandfather gave up, easily, you know, when I started –"

"Don't talk about him."

"What, are you going to blush? You're ashamed, Andrew? Yes, you have a lot to be ashamed of. Your grandfather saved this country without even knowing it, you know. He was a proud man, a detestable man, but he made me and my sister and we saved your pitiful little world," she spits. "You should be grateful."

"I have nothing to be grateful for. What my grandfather did was horrible, and I'm here to clean it up, to wipe you and your species off the earth, back to where you belong."

"You do look like him," Nomi sings. "You have his eyes."

He leaps; his hands find her throat like it's all they'd been searching for since he was born, and he starts squeezing, his face red. "You're a monster," he snarls, "you're a monster, you're a monster –"

It takes Quinn, Uriah and Thema to pry him off her. Lois is curled up on the couch, and Uriah feels a momentary pang of pity for him, that he has to be caught up in all this madness. Asta screams. Uriah leaves Andrew to Thema and Quinn to stop her, press a hand over her mouth. She bites him, hard; he jumps back. Even with blood in her mouth, she looks collected and cool, wiser than her sister. She sits back demurely when she sees Nomi isn't injured, pressing a thumb to the corner of her mouth.

She smiles her twisted smile up at Uriah. "You taste good," she says, licking a smear of blood on the tip of her thumb. Bile rises in Uriah's gut, sour. 

Nomi massages her neck with a small grimace. "You do have a strong grip, I'll give you that;" but they ignore her, too busy pulling Andrew in a corner. His shoulders are heaving, his face down. Is he crying? He can't be. He's – "You know what she's done," he whispers fiercely, "and she doesn't regret anything, not one thing. She deserves to die." He spits on the ground. "She deserves to die ten times over, she –"

Thema shakes him roughly. "For Christ's sake, get a hold of yourself. You know we can't kill her now. And what was that about doing it on TV?"

With perfect timing, someone knocks at the door. They all jump; all but Nomi, who is bowled over in her chair, Quinn standing behind her like a guard. When Uriah looks at her, her face is impassible but her hands are twitching, like she wants to try too, squeeze the life out of the Red Queen. Nomi's knee is touching her sister's and they're smiling; it's a worrying sight.

"Who is it?" Thema asks, a wrinkle barring her forehead.

"I told you. I know someone at NBC. They're coming here to cover the story."

"You're sure they're not going to betray us?"

He shrugs. "As sure as you can be of anyone."

Thema slaps him; the sound is crisp and surprising. A deadly silence falls on the room. Thema bites her lip, but when she talks she's unapologetic. "This isn't the time to be stubborn, Andrew. Okay," she rakes a hand through her hair, "okay, we have to let him in. Uriah, you can take over with Nomi. I'll look over him."

Uriah gives her a grateful look, and the thought blares through his mind like lightning, _I could kiss her_. He could, couldn't he? But – he blinks. Not now. "Quinn, can you –"

She nods. Lois has repossessed the notebooks and is bent over them stubbornly, as though trying to block everything around him. If only they could alert someone, his father, ask him to collect him now... There will be more death. There is always death in moments like this. They've gotten rid of Nomi's assassin, the corpse between the sink and the kitchen table, stocked there like provisions. They're all working on empty stomachs and a thrumming sense of dread. Uriah wishes he could say he was still convinced that what they're doing is for the best, but the truth is he's running on automatic, a loose sense of loyalty tying his movements together. He promised, didn't he? He said he was in? He is. 

Quinn opens the door. A mousy and profusely sweating man, dressed in plaid with a camera hauled on his shoulders, stares fixedly at her. "Are you –" He blinks. 

Quinn considers him peacefully. "Come in," she says. 

He follows her into the house. In the prophetic silence his steps resound vividly, like a gong. Uriah can see from the green blinking light on the side of the camera that it's a turned on, and he tries to imagine what is sees: a strange gathering in nondescript living-room (they've barricaded the windows and covered the furniture with sheets to make it impossible to locate), a strong-faced man, his mouth wracked with anger, and a woman holding him back, strong, determined; a child on the couch, reading diligently; a blond, tall woman slumped forward, and her companion, a young man standing in the middle of the room, looking as though he's wondering how he ended up here; and the Red Queen and her sister, cuffed and entranced in each other. The journalist exhales a breath. 

"I'm Carlos, huh," he holds out his hand and Uriah shakes it absently, looking somewhere beyond him, "um, Carlos Molina. I guess –"

Quinn holds a finger to her mouth. Carlos nods frantically. 

Uriah clears his throat. "Nomi Brûlée, are you willing to resign, in light of all the crimes you committed against this country and its inhabitants?"

Nomi smiles, looking right at the camera. "I am."

The printer has been working overtime, a slow buzzing in the background. Uriah grabs them without looking. The paper is hot in his hands. He looks down at them, trying to read. The legal parlance is giving him a headache. Thema takes them from him, sorts them out quickly. The silence is made of lead. 

"Here," Thema gives him the documents. He passes them over to Nomi. "If you'll sign –"

She's given a pen, and she signs. There's nothing but the rustle of paper, the squeak of the pen on the glossy documents. Nomi doesn't talk. Their breathing is loud, harried; Uriah feels like his pounding heartbeat might be contagious. He tries to tamper it down, without success.

Nomi looks up at him. He can't read into her eyes: she's resigned, and beautiful, her pupils deep and devoid of color. If he tipped forward he could drown into her, because in that minute she encompasses everything in the world. It's absurdly easy, and frightening, to understand why people could believe her: she really is magnetic, and the way she wears a crown is the way of people who knows they deserve it. Behind her Asta's mouth is tight, angry. She doesn't want to be saved, Uriah realizes. It's another kind of selflessness, this: she would give her life so that her sister could be queen and have all the power they conquered together. 

He hands Nomi the last sheet of paper, wordlessly. Her fingers close on its edge: "If you'll sign here," he says again – right where it says, _I, Nomi Brûlée, consent –_

and she signs. 

*

There is a child, in a Pennsylvanian household, who stumbled over the chew toys left out for the dogs in the living-room. The man on the TV is talking fast – the mother, a housewife with stringy hair, yells. Soon the family gathers around the post, and all over the country people imitate them, without knowing, crowding around TVs, radios, laptops, tablets, with wide eyes and gaping mouths. 

In the deserted Mansion the generals throw their hands up, cursing their rebellious leader. Lists are drawn, or potential new candidates for the presidency; journalists are crowding at the gates – will a press conference be held? Is there going to be an election? How is the new leader to be chosen? What about the Resistance that has started acting up in the last few months, what about them? Do the officials have anything to say, anything at all? People are being bribed, airplanes are filled to capacity, word of a revolution is being whispered everywhere you can turn; and on all the screens that same image, a strange and empty room, and the camera focused only on Nomi and a man unknown to the public, young, dressed casually. Hypothesis about his name fly. 

There were other people in the room when they started filming, someone says – as soon as the word is out it's a chase for who will dig up the footage first, and then hundreds of experts scrubbing the images, trying to guess who is who, the child, the man in the back, and is that – but yes, it's Asta, the queen's sister – 

They run. Everyone runs, but in that room they don't. They talk in low tones, and even though there's no wind, Nomi's hair sways about her hips, like a clock. Tik – tok, it counts down. Tik. Tok. 

*

"You'll let my sister go first. Once she's out of the building, I'll leave. All the officials I put in place will be appropriately demoted, and you won't be persecuted for your abduction of my sister."

"What will you do?"

Asta, still frowning, bends over to Lois. He looks at her with wide eyes, but doesn't reject her when she starts talking to him. Uriah wonders if they have some kind of understanding, if something in their wiring makes them able to understand each other in a way Uriah can't imagine. He thinks about telling Thema, so she can pull Asta back as she'd probably want to, but Nomi starts talking again. The thought flies out of his head. Carlos Molina has been instructed to take a few steps back and shut off his microphone, now that the crucial part of the announcement is over. Maybe, Uriah thinks without real intent, the world outside of them is entirely filled with static, with expectant silence – 

"I don't know," Nomi says, shrugging. "There are a lot of places we haven't visited, aren't there, Asta?"

Asta raises fierce angry eyes to her. "Don't do this," she pleads. 

"I'm saving your life."

"I'll hate you. I'll hate you forever, I swear, I will leave you –" Uriah looks away, even if Andrew would say, _you don't owe monsters any courtesy_ – "I will leave you and never return," Asta says, her mouth twisted and sad. 

Nomi doesn't falter. "If it's the price for your life. I know," she leans forward, so her forehead touches her sister's, and Asta allows it, brushing a reluctant hand over the line of Nomi's jaw, "I know that nothing comes free, sister. This is me making a sacrifice. I want to see you live forever."

"I won't," Asta whispers fiercely. 

Andrew clears his throat; Nomi turns back to him, her poker face back on. "I don't think –" he starts, but a furious murmur behind him forces him to stop and ask what's going on. Andrew pushes Thema out of her way. 

"She's not going," he says, pointing to Nomi apathetically. He has one of Thema's guns in his hand. It's a FN Five-seven; Uriah recognizes it out of habit, because Thema trained him to in the endless hours where there was nothing to do but wait. "I don't care about the sister, you can let her go if you want." He waves the gun at Nomi. "But this one is mine. She killed my mother."

Nomi gives him a wry grin. "I killed my fair share of members of the Dedalus family, darling, but your mother wasn't one of them."

He takes a few steps forward, until he's hissing right at her, pouring his hatred in her mouth, "She spent her whole life trying to kill for what you'd done. You killed three generations of this family: your tortured my grandparents and you exhausted my mother so much that she died at fifty, with her head shaven like one of your _slaves_. You," he spits, "killed my mother."

Nomi breathes out a little sigh. "Right. Well, I guess that's fair enough."

Quinn detaches herself from the shadows. She comes up at Andrew's shoulder, wraps her hand around his, their joined fingers weighing on the trigger. Plastered behind him, she rests her face on his shoulder, her face perfectly serene. 

"You can't let Asta go," she says quietly. "You're not the only one who wants revenge, remember?" She bends closer, and everyone holds their breath to hear her whisper: "You promised."

Andrew shivers. Uriah remembers that night back on Captiva, how fragile that woman had looked, with her supernatural eyes and chipped nail polish; is there anything left of her here, in those dead eyes? Uriah has felt the need for revenge many times, but not like this: not something that eats you inside, that rots you, that posesses you. 

He slides between Nomi and Andrew, unthinking. Quinn frowns over Andrew's shoulder, and for a terrifying second, he's certain that she would rip through him to get to her target, still bent over Lois on the couch. He feels the nose of Andrew's gun over his chest, heaving with his breathing. Well – that was a spectacularly stupid thing to do. Now he just has to deal with it, doesn't he? 

A glimpse at Thema and she smiles back at him, reassuring, maybe proud; it contradicts all the guns and buoys him up a little. She never thought he was particularly brave, but she likes him anyway, doesn't she?

"Stop this," he tells Andrew, but for some reason his eyes find Quinn, even colder, more determined. 

She looks back at him. There is no anger, only placid certitude. She's regained her age, her wrinkles and her self-possession. Uriah feels he ought to bow his head, or kneel. "Do you know how many people she's killed?" she asks calmly. "It's not hundred. It's not thousands. Andrew –" she winds her arms tighter around him, as though she was trying to suffocate him, "has his reasons for wanting to kill her, but it's nothing compared to this." She looks away, sighs. Then, her eyes back on him in a second, blue, piercing, "You like my stories, right?"

He hesitates. "I do."

"Let me tell a story, then." He considers telling her it's neither the time nor the place, but the silence pins him down, everyone is listening. Maybe Nomi and her have more in common than they desire. "When Sara brought me to Captiva, we took the plane, and I woke up on this island. I was in the house, and everything was white... for years I had seen nothing but the inside of the Mansion, where I knew every nook and cranny – that and my mother's house. It'd been so long since I'd seen another place, and I cried, because Jack was dead and here I was, lost." Uriah opens his mouth to say something, but she raises a hand, still holding onto Andrew's gun. Her eyes are heavy-lidded, she looks sleepy, distracted. "Can you believe I had never seen the sea before? I don't know how that is. I lived in the country, and no one told me... I head about it, of course, but I never saw it. On the day after I came to Captiva, I woke up at dawn. Sara was still sleeping. I went house of the house, to investigate... now, what Sara hadn't told me was that Nomi, your Nomi, was angry at me. For leaving, you understand? Because you can't leave people like her." She looks straight at Nomi, without fear. "The only way to leave is death, isn't it? Anyway, I came down to the sea. It was summer. I stepped in. I was in rapture, you know how it is – when you see something you've never seen before, especially something as immense, as beautiful as the sea. You want to take all of it in, without missing one parcel. For the first time since I'd run away I felt at peace, I didn't feel wounded anymore. I felt like there was a place where Jackson was safe, maybe heaven, maybe somewhere else. Who knows? I was so happy, so calm." She swallows. "I stayed there for a long time, until the sun was completely up in the sky. After a while villagers started to come down to the beach, but they wouldn't come near me. I thought it was because I was a stranger. They gathered around me, at a safe distance, watching with those eyes, big and scared, and no one would say a word... and I wondered, why? Do they really hate me that much, that they won't even tell me what they hate me for? So I walked back into the sea, because she protected me. She was so good, so wide, so reassuring... I stepped back until I was in to the waist. They kept looking. And then –" She stops; Andrew, in a surprising gesture, takes her other hand, the one not holding the gun, in his, and laces their fingers. "And then I felt something bump against my leg, and I reached for it. And when I took it out of the water, it was a head." Uriah can't even hear his own gasp over the pounding in his ears; he only sees Thema's face, mirroring his own in comical horror. Quinn tilts her head with a smile. "You don't cross Nomi Brûlée, or her sister, they'd told me that the first day I started working there. You don't cross them, you just don't do it. Because if you do, you end up in a bloody sea, surrounded by corpses. Do you know – do you know how many they had to kill to make the sea red? Not just people I knew, who worked with me at the Mansion; but they came in Florida and they were like a hurricane, just because they were mad, and they killed all these people, and I could never sleep a night's sleep after that. That's why I want revenge. There's not enough blood in her body," she nods at Asta, "to pay me back for all that death, but I'll take it."

Uriah has no words, no brain that is not horror at that story and its raconteur, smooth-faced and scarred. His knee-jerk reaction is to get out of the way and give her the gun, let her press the trigger – but then he remembers. Death doesn't solve anything. 

"Death doesn't solve anything," he says, even though his mouth feels like it's full of chalk. 

She smiles and tilts her head, as though chiding a rueful child. "If you really believe that, then you haven't lived enough," she says gently. "Or you're lucky."

He turns to Andrew, blindly. "Tell her."

Andrew gives a bitter laugh. "I kill people for a living, you do remember that? Besides, I told her she'd have her revenge. It was her price, and I keep my promises. Get out of the way, Uriah."

Is there a way to say, without breaking, that he wants to protect them? The both of them – that he doesn't want to see them dip their hands in more blood?

"We could just let them go," he pleads, even though he knows it's useless, "we'll never hear about them again. There are so many things to build – we don't need to kill them. They'll die."

Quinn considers him sadly. "They'll just start over somewhere else. Someone needs to put them in the ground, and we're here. Move out of the way, Uriah. You don't have to look."

"I can't – you said it, it'll make everything she signs null and void."

"It's true," Thema pipes up. "At least let her go to say in public that she resigns, you can kill her then, if you haven't changed your mind."

Quinn shrugs. "I don't care."

Andrew does care. He shakes himself awake. "You're right," he says to Thema. "We should – can we install a tracker on her?"

Quinn pouts, sliding inelegantly in a chair. "Leave me the sister," she says. 

Some air seems to flow back into the room. Uriah can finally breathe, but the story is still sticking to him, and he's probably not the only one. Nomi and Asta are eerily silent, though not out of horror or shock; they're pressed tightly together, back to communicating in a way only they probably know how. Asta's traits are taut, almost angry. Uriah spies Thema moving in the back of the room, pressing a listless Lois to her chest. He can't help but hope, in a vacant and aching way, that this is a mess that can be fixed, one way or another.

Uriah will admit, much later, that he still doesn't understand how what happened after that happens. It's a second; everybody loosens, looks to their loved one instead of their prisonners, reflects – just a second, but it's enough. Before they can even blink, Asta jumps. She hasn't made a violent movement since they brought her in, her tongue excepted; this deployment of strength is not only completely unexpected but also disproportionnate, for such a small and calm woman. The ties on her wrists come off like they're made of water, her legs unfold – with a flick of her wrist she grabs Andrew's gun; her foot hits him once on the side of his leg, making him stumble, and then sharply on the side. He falls. Her knee collides with Thema's chest, projecting her backwards. Asta's wild hair rips the air around her; the point of her elbow barely touches Uriah's throat but it's like a blade, and he goes down quickly, his head spinning. Asta's arm winds aroud her sister's shoulder, she drags her back, pressing the gun she stole against her temple. 

"I'm sorry, darling," she mumbles in Nomi's air. 

The room is the land after the hurricane: everything is askew and those who aren't on the ground gape, unable to talk. Quick as a whip, Quinn closes her mouth and jumps on the gun that has slid from Thema's finger as she fell. She kneels up, pointing it at Asta; Uriah happens to catch her eyes in the process and he's sure, painfully certain that she's going to fire. 

Nomi snarls, trying to struggle out of her sister's grasp. Asta tightens her arm. "You can't kill me," Nomi spits. 

"But I can try." The blue in her eyes is Arctic. "And I hope you have a thick skin, because something tells me your little sister isn't near as invulnerable as you."

Two fingers – on the very edge of her thumb, wrapped around the gun, a smidgeon of orange, almost invisible. Her index tightens on the trigger; on her face a flicker of something, the expectation of peace. Uriah can almost read the thoughts in her head, _maybe then I'll get my rest_ , and he feels a pang of guilt. Some suffering is just impossible to imagine. 

"Don't!"

Uriah, mouth half-open to yell the same thing, turns around. Andrew has hauled himself on his elbows and, reaching with his leg, has kicked the gun out of Quinn's hand. With a grown, they both dive. 

Uriah isn't sure where to look. Lois has let go of the notebooks and is hugging his knees, shaking. As Thema starts to groan and wake up, he crawls to the arm of the couch closest to her and hangs on it. She extends a hand towards him; he takes it. 

Asta is still holding her sister captive, and they're whispering in low tones. Uriah looks, intrigued – Asta has the gun, but she's weak, and it probably wouldn't take an excessive amount of force for Nomi to break out of her grasp. But she doesn't; their heads are bent together, the gun pressing into Nomi's cheek, tangled with her hair, even though she doesn't seem to notice. 

"You have to go," Asta is saying. "Please, go."

"I won't leave you," Nomi hisses. "You know I won't. Why are you –"

"It's over for us, you know it as well as I do. This has all been broadcasted, it's only a matter of time because the uprisings start, and the party isn't what it used to be. Without their inconditionnal support there's no way we can make it out of here, and Henderson's showed the way, dead or not. You have all I've taught you. Go."

Nomi shows teeth. "No. No. This isn't – you said we'd be together for ever. This isn't forever."

"It was never going to be forever." Asta smiles sadly. "Didn't I also tell you not to trust anyone? I'm sick, Nomi. I've been sick for years, and I know you want to protect me, but you can't. You have –" she lifts her hand to Nomi's cheek, "you have so many years before you. You can build another kingdom, somewhere else. The sky is fraught with planets just waiting for you dominion. Take the ship and go."

"But they'll kill you."

"Maybe. But I'm fated to die, and you're not. Let's not spill more of our blood, sister. You have greatness in you still. I've always known that. I've taught you all I know, and you've been a good pupil and a good companion. Now it's time to go on your own."

Nomi drops her forehead against Asta's shoulder. She might be crying. Uriah looks away. "I can't do this," she whispers. 

"Of course you can. You can do everything. Take the ship. This is what you have to do. If you don't do it for yourself, do it for me."

"I can't leave you."

With two fingers, Asta brings Nomi's face up. She doesn't look like a queen with her face streaked by tears. In fact, she looks infinitely younger than she is, almost human – but maybe that's Uriah's sentimentalism talking. No, she doesn't look human. She looks –

"You can leave me, and you will. This was going to happen from the beginning, Nomi, from the day you woke up and found me –"

"You found _me_ ," Nomi protests. 

"And I found you, and I told you you were my sister and you would do what I couldn't. I'm weak. I've accepted that. Death isn't such a horrible thing, you know. You won't get to feel it for a few hundreds of years, but then you'll join me and you'll tell me everything you accomplished in my name. I love you. It will be peace for me, and for you –"

Nomi breathes in. Her eyes are shining. She bows her head, hair falling like a curtain around her. "Okay," she says. 

"Okay," Asta echoes, not moving the gun. "When I say run, you run. Don't look back. Go back to the Mansion, take the humans there, you'll need them. Take the ministers who'll go with you. Tell them this planet is lost, and there is nothing you can do about it. When you get to the new planet, punish them. Take as many as you can, and then leave. No one can stop you. We have done all we could here. And – wait –"

She turns to Lois, her face cold. "Give me the notebooks," she orders. 

Lois cowers, hugging them closer to his chest. Everything is still for a moment, Asta's gun moves minutely on Nomi's cheek. A long, hard shiver shakes Thema. "Do what she tells you," she whispers urgently. 

Lois obeys. Face down, he gives the notebooks to Nomi from the very tips of his fingers. Nomi breathes out. Around her, Asta's hold turns to a caress. The camera is still turning, though the cameraman crouched down on the ground when everything got raucous. He's an investigative journalist, not a war commentator. He's sweating heavily and, like everyone else, he's holding his breath. Sometimes you can't tell when you're witnessing history; sometimes you can.

Nomi takes the notebooks with a strange kind of reverence. She looks up at Asta. "What is this?"

"Those will be useful. I haven't read them all, and they're coded, but you'll work it out; they're Stephen's journals." Nomi gives a movement of surprise. "I know, I thought they were lost too. There's everything you'll need there, with a little luck you can even figure out how to assure the perenity of our species. We can live forever, Nomi. You and me, we can be the creators. You'll start over and do everything right, this time. I trust you."

Nomi inhales sharply, reclining on her sister's chest. Her gaze sweeps over Andrew, Thema, Uriah and Quinn in turn, but it's absent, she can't see them. With minute gestures, she twists her long hair into a long rope, that she ties on itself. Her fingers join Asta's on the gun. They don't need to talk anymore. "Tell me when I have to run."

It seems like it's in slow-motion, but it's not. All of this must have been said in a handful of minutes, while they're all still catching their breath; a conversation in hurried murmurs, and all they saw was that gun and those women, and they didn't hear much, except for those who listened, and those who listened won't want to remember. Uriah won't want to remember, but he will. How do you forget something like that? In twenty years people will still be scrubbing those tapes for information they might've missed and asking him for interviews that he won't give, because he'll see this conversation at night when the thunder strikes outside his window in a half-restored world, and he'll twitch and turn in his sleep.

But for now – for now listen. Nomi takes the gun. Asta leans in – their lips meet in a kiss. Nomi's hand buries itself in Asta's hair while the gun slides out of Asta's grasp, they press their face against each other's in a way that has lost habit, comfort, tenderness, that is all need and the urgency of goodbyes. Nomi whispers something against her sister's lips. The gun fires one shot. Andrew jumps back, dust rising from the wall besides him. Nomi starts to run. 

Nomi. Nomi Brûlée, the Red Queen, Nomi runs. The little cord holding her silken hood to her throat unties and it falls to the ground behind her, rustling as it pools in soft red folds. Despite himself, Uriah remembers an old human fairy tale, about a wolf and a someone wearing a hood of that kind, but he can't remember who was the antagonist. In doubt, he settles on the hooded figure – always a good bet.

As soon as Nomi starts running Andrew jumps to his feet. He's still holding his side where Asta hit him, but he's recovered Thema's gun from Quinn's. He fires twice. More dust rises, Uriah coughs, Quinn lunges forward to hold Asta down so she can't run too, Thema envelops her son in an embrace, shielding his head with her hands. Andrew runs, wobbling. After a second of bemusement, Uriah gets up and slides an arm under Andrew's to help him. 

"I'm here."

More shots, this time from Nomi. She's still in the house, but it's a matter of seconds before she finds the door, and then everything will get more complicated even more complicated. Uriah forces Andrew to duck, they narrowly escape a bullet that ends up hitting the cameraman in the gut. Andrew swears loudly. He presses his gun in Uriah's hand, his eyes wild. 

"Follow her. Please."

Uriah nods frantically. "Yeah, okay." Almost mechanically, he takes the ammo Andrew gives him and loads it into the gun. His legs are aching, burning to run after Nomi. He's never killed anyone, he remembers in a haze, but his body isn't his anymore, a stranger rage possesses it, and Uriah doesn't have the energy or the desire to fight it.

Andrew's palms, dirty with soot and blood Uriah isn't sure where he got, press against his cheeks. His eyes are deep and frighteningly clear, with only one purpose, and absolute faith. "Get her," he whispers. 

Uriah nods and tears himself away. What he's doing isn't bravery; he's lending his body to a greater cause, something that eludes him almost entirely. But Andrew is his friend. Thema's training kicks in as he starts running, jumping over chairs, Asta's slack face. The only thing in his ears is the pounding of his heart, the blood steady and strong. _Follow the rhythm._ She has superior strength, but he has a purpose. Indistinctly, as he distances himself from the living-room, he hears sounds, voices: Quinn reassuring the cameraman, Andrew swearing, the click of another gun, Thema, probably pointing at Asta.

_Run._

What was it Quinn said, her story? It's just that it doesn't seem to fit, you know, that and the kiss and everything that they said. But then again you wouldn't peg Andrew as someone with a fanatical hatred of anything, would you? He seems pretty normal – well, for a killer. He seems level-headed, and then, when you dig... all that darkness. That's how it works, doesn't it? Some things wounds people, and those wounds, when they scar, fester. Uriah runs. He feels a little newborn, a little clean. He doesn't violently hate anything. But maybe the world needs people like him too, doesn't it? People to run. People to take over, when the wounds bring the others down and make them bleed. Worry tries to insinuate itself in his brain, but Uriah won't let it. The door opens, and light floods in. Uriah fires a shot. It misses. Nomi is easily recognizabe, what with that hair, but even without it... there's something about her. She turns around, sees him. Smiling, she breaks into the whiteness. After a split second of hesitation, he follows.

He blinks. Nomi is still running. His gun isn't empty. He'll hunt her down and kill her, he's so sure of it he's almost burning with it. He's never killed anyone before, but it doesn't matter. He won't miss. This isn't his shot. He's doing this for Andrew, and the force of that anger will be enough to direct the bullet. Uriah owes him that, right? And even if he doesn't, that's what friendship means, right? It means that when your friend is down, you're the one with the gun.

_Run._

*

Nomi comes to a stop. She's not out of breath. She smiles, her gun raised; in the other, the notebooks.

"You can stop running now," she says when Uriah comes up to her, not unkindly.

He thinks he presses the trigger then, but no bullet comes out, so maybe it's just an impression. His head is swimming a little, he's sweating through his clothes. His head is full of thoughts. 

"You can't kill me," Nomi says gently. "You know that. I can't die."

Quinn's face shines into his mind like a beacon, a foreboding. _Everyone can die._ "Everyone can die."

Nomi shakes her head sadly. "Not me. You heard Asta. I'm not dying yet, I've got too many things to do. Stop running; tell him I'm dead, tell him they left without me. It'll be enough."

"You won't be dead."

She shrugs, still smiling. "Shit happens," she grins. Her shirt rode down when she was running and her throat is showing, the clear tattoo of her mark. DEDALUS. Maybe she was a victim, once, but that's gone now. Over. She has to die. Right? 

"I can't let you go," he says. He tightens his grip on his gun, trying to sound confident, but he feels small. 

"I'll go anyway, whether you let me or not. You don't want to die, do you?"

 _No one wants to die,_ he thinks about saying, but then he remembers Asta. Maybe that's not entirely true. So he doesn't say anything. How many times has he shot a gun in his life? It's funny; he's carried a lot but not drawn. He's just not this kind of guy, you know? He has a sharp tongue and long legs, he runs fast, usually it's enough. He gets out of enough bad situations like that. She probably knows that; she can read it in his body and his face. He has a good enough poker face, but she's the Red Queen, and that just changes everything, doesn't it? 

(He gets out of enough bad situations like that, with his quick hands and his words. That's how he met Thema, actually. She wouldn't fall for his bullshit. She wouldn't hesitate to fire, Mechanic or not.)

So that's what gets him. He presses his finger down on the trigger. She jumps back, surprised, tries to duck, but the bullet hits her in the shoulder and she winces, doesn't scream; she presses a hand to the bloody wound, raises her face to him, astonished, and starts running again. He fires in her direction. He doesn't have enough strength to keep running after her, it doesn't matter if she's injured. He keeps firing until he's all out of bullet and surrounded by smoke. A scream tears the air, but it's not her. He wants to believe she's dead, so he doesn't look, doesn't look to check if she's lying in the dust, pierced by enough bullets to make her really dead. The lie is already writing itself in his mind; he shakes his head. 

_She's gone._

Yes – she's gone. History is written by the winners, and now it's his turn. 

*

They welcome him back without screams, expectant, their hands bloody almost without exception. Quinn is red up to the wrist, but undisturbed, still leaning on the journalist. 

"We sent for an ambulance," she says sedately, "but apparently some riots have broken up in the city. It'll be a while."

Uriah swallows. Everything feels unreal, like he's swimming, his every motion slowed by the water. "Is he going to be okay?"

Quinn shrugs. "Maybe." She tilts her head, as though to say, _those humans, they're tricky._ But maybe he's just imagining things again.

Thema stumbles up. They stand in front of one another for a second. Her hair is matted to her forehead with sweat, her clothes covered in dust and blood. Behind her Lois is sitting, less afraid than he'd looked before. Uriah wonders absently how much therapy he'll need to recover from everything that happened today.

"Uriah," Thema breathes.

Has he noticed before how beautiful she is? Maybe. He must've; she was beautiful holding a gun to his face and she was beautiful in his bed, beautiful the first time she left, the second; beautiful when he showed up at her door; beautiful with that wound on her stomach, taking down Mechanics in her laboratory. But now – it's not comparable. He staggers with the weight of it, sighing a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. 

"Thema," he says, as an answer. 

She smiles. It reaches all the way up to her eyes, crinkling them at the corners. _I love you,_ he thinks, but doesn't say. She must know, by now.

He couldn't say who falls into whose arms first, but he's not sure it really matters. His arms close around her gracefully – the tension bleeds out of him and he's back to himself, cocky and cowardly but unfailingly loyal. He holds her as hard as he can, and she holds him back. It's frantic and messy and _personal_ , maybe not something to do in front of an audience but fuck it, he loves her and he's pretty sure she loves him too, so what does it matter? His eyes are damp. He mouths in her hair how much he loves her; her skin is warm under his hands where her clothes have been torn in her fall, and he's pretty sure she ripped a bit of her shirt to use as a bandage on the cameraman. A surge of affection almost knocks him over.

He breathes, finally, fully; here is someone who knows him inside out and still loves him, a woman he couldn't have invented, couldn't have dreamed of, who is fierce and brave and generous with a genius brain and a frightening ease around guns.

Eventually she's the one who pulls away. She ducks her head, smiling. He clears his throat. "Um," he says uneloquently. 

Andrew is on him before he can figure out what to say that will ease off the embarrassment a little. Uriah laughs. "What, you want to hug me too?"

Andrew rolls his eyes. "Is she dead?" he asks urgently.

Uriah nods. "Yes. They won't find her, I hid the body. I –" he looks down, unsure, "even if they do find the body, they won't recognize her. There's no way to find her chip and restore her now." He looks up, breathing through his nose. Behind him, Asta starts screaming, a high-pitched, torturous wail. Uriah winces. "I think her ship left anyway."

Andrew furrows his eyebrows. "Yeah, what was that?" He turns to Asta, but it soon becomes evident that she's not going to say anything. _Do you think monsters feel that much distress?_ Uriah wants to ask him. He doesn't.

"When I was still working in San Fran there were rumors about Nomi building a spaceship," Thema offers. "Not like the commerical ones, something built for long-distance travel, maybe colonization, I don't remember." She shrugs. "It was pretty nebulous, honestly."

Andrew frowns. 

Posessed with a preternatural calm, Uriah lays a hand on his shoulder. "Let them go. We have enough to take care of here. They'll lose themselves out there. You know as well as me that there isn't anywhere to settle, otherwise they'd have been there for years. If they come back we'll shoot them down, but in the meantime let's just forget about them. There are thousands of Mechanics left here. Let's deal with that."

"You're right."

He turns around. For all that the death of Nomi might have changed him, his face hasn't, Uriah notices with something like disappointment. Maybe he'd been hoping for some peace, or a smile... but it doesn't matter.

"Thank you," he says, and it's the most genuine Uriah has ever heard him sounds. It shakes him a little, even though he tries not to let it show.

"Aw," he grins. "You do want to hug me."

"Shut up," Andrew grouses, but he wraps an arm around his shoulders anyway, and pulls him in. 

*

This story will be told in a number of ways later. Details will be changed, and even main events. Characters will invented; heroes will be made out of common men, and evil overloads out of sisters who may or may not have actually been evil. But it doesn't matter.

This story will change, like all stories changed when they're weaved into the spinning wheel of time. They'll say the sun was shining bright and blinding when they came out, covered with blood and dust. It wasn't. The sky was low and grey, a foreboding of troubled times to come. There was little glory. Quinn watched Asta cry without an ounce of pity, and the shaking in her hands slowly subsided as she sucked in her enemy's misery. Even good people can be cruel. Just because people do good things doesn't mean they are good. 

But here, today, as the first version of this story ends: they step out the house, from the shielded and fuming darkness. The sky is low and grey, foreboding of troubled times to come. They're pressed together in a line, heroes or villains, you forget when you're the protagonist. Maybe Thema and Uriah are holding hands. Maybe the child Thema gave up when she was nineteen is forgetting to resent her and is leaning against her leg, looking older than her years. Maybe Quinn is smiling. Maybe Andrew looks like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. 

The world is full of noise, joy and anger; something is changing at the very foundation of humanity, kicking out its restraints. Some people call it freedom, others call it revolution. The name doesn't matter – it's not a pretty thing, it's not easy, it takes blood and time and courage and cowardice, it takes new heroes and new villains. But they're standing outside the house, and they've done their part. They're given the first kick, walked the first step. 

Andrew sighs. The wind ruffles his hair like a fond but exasperated parent, and he leans back into it, smile quirking the corners of his mouth. "We're okay," he says quietly, and they echo, without even thinking, hands and arms linking in the small breeze, under the grey skies, "We're okay."

They're okay. The rest can wait.


End file.
